Tales from the Cockpit
by Mirai-Rogue-Prime
Summary: A selection of tales from cockpits of common pilots.
1. Tale One

This is the extension of an idea I've had zooming around my head for a couple of years now. The 'Tale from the Cockpit' concept dates back from when I felt I couldn't write a full fan fic and was just going to write a series of 'short' fics from all over the Universal Century and the other Alternate Universes. Although my writing ability has moved on a little bit from then I still think the concept is sound. Therefore I present to you:-  
  
**Tale One: Ensign Anthony Curran – MS-06C Zaku II – Battle of Loum  
**  
There was a sickly feeling in Ensign Anthony Curran's stomach as his mobile suit squad was brought up to the frontline. This was the first time he'd been to Side 5 since he left to join the Zeon Military Force four years previously. He'd always hoped for a peaceful return to his home colony but he knew the whole Side had to be purified of collaborators. The sight of the Earth Federation Space Forces fleet was proof enough for him that Side was now rotten to the core.  
  
Anthony's unit had been placed in the reserve formation since few in the command structure expected the Federation to attempt to defend Side 5. However the Federal Fleet had appeared and the fighting had, thus far, been vicious therefore the reserve had been called up. The Musai cruiser that Anthony had been assigned too deployed its trio of Zaku IIs before moving up to plug a gap in the Zeon battle line. The orders Anthony had received were simple enough 'Eliminate Enemy Capital Ships'.  
  
For Anthony and his two wingmen this was their first combat mission and as they cross the Zeon battle line into the space between the two fleets he realised that it was going to be one hell of a baptism of fire. Anthony was immediately forced to throw his Zaku II into an evasive climb as a quartet of Federal Sabrefish fighters raced past. The broiling melee between the two fleets was full of nuclear torpedoes, mega particle beams, Federal fighters and Zeon mobile suits. Even the colonies themselves were taking damage from the battle. Anthony barely knew where to manoeuvre since it seemed no matter where he went he forced to avoid some sort of danger. To their credit his wingmen managed to stick with him without receiving much damage. Out of the corner of his eye Anthony spotted a Jicco missile boat ripped apart by explosions, it'd been gunned down by a Salamis cruiser.  
  
Through the melee Anthony spotted the responsible cruiser and set his course towards it. Almost straight away the cruisers guns opened up on the approaching trio of Zaku IIs. He didn't let that faze him though and continued on, he brought up his bazooka and tried to aim best that he could. Then he pulled the trigger. The nuclear tipped bazooka round shot through space and as it pierced the armoured hull of the Salamis cruiser time seemed to stop for Anthony. In a bright white flash the rear half of the cruiser disappeared, the expanding nuclear blast vaporised some of the cruisers escorting fighters as well while others quickly evaded.  
  
Even as the rear of the cruiser disappeared the front batteries kept firing for a few seconds before secondary explosions spread throughout the shattered hulk. A lucky shot struck one of Anthony's wingmen; the mega particle beam tore through the Zaku II just above the right leg severing it. The Zaku II span off in an uncontrollable spiral, the sacrifice the pilot made was not in vain however as the out of control Zaku II piled into the command tower of another Salamis cruiser.  
  
The eight of the fighters that had been escorting the cruiser Anthony destroyed quickly rallied and moved to attack to two remaining Zaku IIs. The Sabrefish's vulcan guns spat bullets out a ferocious rate and Anthony was forced to position himself so that he could use his arm shield as cover. He knew he had to time his counterattack carefully or risk getting caught by how own nuclear attack. He waited for the first flight of four zoom past his before training his bazooka on them, he waited before the display on his monitor showed that he was clear of the blast range before pressing the trigger. All four of the Sabrefish vanished in the white flash.  
  
The other four Sabrefish had gone off after Anthony's wingman, who hadn't been anywhere near as successful as Anthony with his bazooka. The other Zaku II pilot had let himself get caught in his own blast radius and even let two of the fighters escape. Anthony watched as one of the Sabrefish pumped a pair of missiles into the Zaku II's head. Without the main cameras that were mounted in the head the Zaku II started to turn violently, in desperation the pilot fired off a couple of rounds from his bazooka but failed to hit the fighters. Anthony could tell the Sabrefish pilot was highly skilled as he swung his fighter around the flailing Zaku II and fired off another salvo of missiles into its backpack. The Sabrefish preformed a snap roll to zoom over the Zaku II as it exploded; the second Sabrefish was not so lucky and got caught up in the Zaku IIs explosion.  
  
Anthony cursed under his breath as the Sabrefish zoomed towards him. At this close range the bazooka was out of the question. Already the reckless Sabrefish pilot was blazing away with his Vulcan guns, too late Anthony realised what the pilot's intension was. The hail of bullets raked up his Zaku IIs chest before they reached the head, the piping that connected to the snout was severed in an instant and the mono-eye was also damaged but not quite to the extent that he was totally blinded. The monitors in Anthony's cockpit flickered in and out of life he couldn't get an accurate picture of where the Sabrefish was. Rather than risking nuclear death by using his bazooka wildly Anthony simply swung it outwards, using it more like a novelty shaped club than a weapon of mass destruction. It did the job however as he felt the jolt of the Sabrefish smashing into the bazooka.  
  
The Sabrefish span violently as its pilot attempted to regain control. As he fought with the controls he accidentally fired off a pair of missiles before the fighter slowly began to disintegrate. In a million to one shot the missiles hit Anthony's Zaku II sheering off the left leg at the knee however the leg piping prevented the leg from drifting far. Through the flickering of his monitors Anthony saw something amazing, from the wreckage of the Sabrefish he could see that the pilot had survived. It was strange but he felt a degree of relief seeing that the pilot was still alive.  
  
The Earth Federation Space Forces were retreating they had succeeded in preventing a second colony drop but at a terrible price. Anthony's Zaku II drifted through what had once been the battle zone. Tears were rolling down Anthony's face, the whole Side was gone. He never wanted this; this wasn't how it was supposed to be. He'd betrayed everyone he held dear. He was the worst kind of traitor.  
  
_End of the Tale._


	2. Tale Two

**Tale Two: Timothy Darl – RGM-79 GM – Operation Cembalo**  
  
Timothy Darl was not having a very good day. That could be considered something of an understatement it was 24th December. Christmas Eve and here he was stuck in a mobile suit fighting for his life while assaulting a dirty great big rock. It wasn't exactly how he had planned on spending Christmas this year but now that he was here he planned on staying alive so that he could celebrate Christmas properly next year.  
  
It had only been a few minutes since the launch order had been given by Admiral Tianem. Somehow Timothy had managed to lose the other two members of his team; another GM piloted by Scott Frost and a Ball piloted by Derek Gold. Without them Timothy was feeling a lot more vulnerable, a lone GM would defiantly be a tempting target for any Zeon pilot. He could remember the advice his squadron leader had given all the pilots before the battle. 'If you get lost.' he'd said. 'Head for Solomon, you'll find someone sooner or later and do try to kill a few Zeeks along the way. That'll make our job easier later on.' Timothy thought that it was pretty crappy advice but at the moment it was better than nothing. He swung the GM around and put it on a rough heading towards Solomon. The big ships of the 3rd Fleet had been hammering at the asteroid for some time now; as Timothy got closer to them he could see that they too had taken a beating from Solomon's defenders. He carefully adjusted his course to keep a fair distance from the warships main guns. The space between the asteroid and the fleet was already a mass of missiles, beams and mobile suits. As the rest of the 2nd Combined Fleet closed in to join with the 3rd Fleet the chaos was getting steadily worse.  
  
Timothy was forced to send his GM in a sharp dodge to the left as a pair of Zeon Gattle spacefighters zoomed in towards him firing off a barrage of missiles. As they swung around he brought up his shield for defence while rather hurriedly returning fire with the head mounted Vulcan guns. Cursing his inaccuracy Timothy pulled out the targeting scope and let the mobile suits' computer lock onto the target. When the crosshairs were aligned he pressed the trigger twice in quick succession. The GMs beam spray gun fired the two shot both of which hit. The first burned its way through one of the Gattle's wings while the other smashed its way through the main body of the fighter. It spun out of control for a few moments before exploding. Timothy let out a victory grunt as the Gattle exploded his first kill of the war. However as he was celebrating the other Gattle escaped into the unfolding battle. Deciding not to risk giving chase Timothy once again set his sights on Solomon. The closer he got to the asteroid the greater the intensity of the fighting around him.  
  
Off to his left Timothy could see a GM shepherding a pack Balls towards Solomon. See it as an opportunity to get a bit of company Timothy adjusted his direction so he could get closer. Suddenly the GM exploded taking out one of the Balls as well. Timothy looked around desperately trying to find the cause of the explosion. Then he saw the trio of Rick Doms closing in with great speed and then began to circle around Timothy and the remaining Balls. Timothy shuddered with fear; he'd heard stories about Doms, from some of the veteran pilots who'd fought on Earth, about how powerful and fast they were. Timothy began swearing loudly as the Doms closed in and blasted another Ball. He cursed Zeon, the Federation and the Doms pilots. He knew that his life was surely coming to an end. He was stuck in a cannon- fodder mech, accompanying a bunch of spherical coffins and surrounded by three lethal killing machines. Closing his eyes and screaming for all he was worth Timothy kept his finger on the trigger and fired wildly hoping to hit something.  
  
After a few moments Timothy realised that he was still alive. Taking his finger off the trigger he slowly opened his eyes to see what was happening. Once his eyes had fully opened he saw a very sprightly GM ramming its beam sabre into the torso of one of the Rick Doms before it kicked away from the Rick Dom and spun on the spot placing a beam shot through the back of another Rick Dom. The two Rick Doms exploded as the GM darted off to chase the remaining Rick Dom. The Rick Dom came around and fired its giant bazooka but the GM deftly avoided it. Getting in real close the GM cut upwards with its beam sabre slicing the giant bazooka in half before ramming the beam sabre downwards through the Rick Dom's head right to the hilt. Withdrawing the sabre it placed the sabre back in its recharge socket and then kicked the lifeless Dom away. It turned then slowly drifted over to where Timothy's GM was. As the new GM came up alongside Timothy he could see that it wasn't a standard GM, it lacked the shield and some armour plating it also carried a different style beam gun. Painted on the GMs shoulder armour was a stylised white Panther head on a hexagonal black background.  
  
When the new GM placed its hand onto Timothy's GMs shoulder Timothy could hear the pilot speaking. 'Hey kid, don't lose it. We've still got a long way to go.'  
  
'Yes sir.' stammered Timothy. 'Thank you for saving me Sir.'  
  
'Just doing my job kid.' said the GM Light Armour's pilot. 'I dunno what outfit you and those Balls are from but you'd better get your arse over to the left flank, the Zeeks are putting up quite the fight over there and our GMs need more support.'  
  
'Yes sir, right away sir.' said Timothy regaining his composure. Before he could even say anything else the GM Light Armour darted off towards a group of Zakus harassing another pack of Balls.  
  
From his central location on the battlefield Timothy could see where the GM Light Armour's pilot wanted him to head. The left flank of the Federations battle line was suffering a counterattack by Zeon mobile suits. He checked his radio and found that minovsky particles weren't jamming him at the moment so he keyed in a channel to the remaining Balls. 'Okay we've got orders to reinforce the left flank, I'm not so pleased about it but lets make the most of it shall we?'  
  
As they closed in on the area where the Zeons were counterattacking Timothy managed to get a good look at the attackers. There were five Zaku II Fs and a pair of Rick Doms led by a Zaku II F2. Timothy could tell the F2 was the leader because of its custom paint job, a yellow and black check pattern. The beleaguered GM unit that were bearing the brunt of the Zeon counterattack had already lost two GMs by the time Timothy and the Balls arrived. He didn't have to give the Balls any orders they simply opened up on the Zeon mobile suits while trying not to make themselves to easy a target, two of the Zakus were cut down in the opening barrage.  
  
Timothy goaded his GM to move faster as he charged in towards the Zaku IIs. He singled out the Zaku II furthest along the line, after pulling round his targeting scope he fired off a couple of shots from his beam spray gun but failed to hit the Zaku II. In return the Zaku II fired off a hail of bullets from its machine gun. The GMs shield was automatically brought up to block the shots. While not the most powerful weapon in the world the bullets from the 120mm machine gun carved some fairly hefty gouges in the armoured shield. The two mobile suits raced past each other they both started to turn in an attempt to get behind each other. Timothy's GM finished the turn moments before the Zaku II and his first shot burned through the Zaku IIs head. Timothy adjusted his aim and fired again, this time he hit the Zaku II in the centre of its chest. As the stream of mega particles breached the Zakus reactor the whole suit exploded.  
  
Timothy didn't have long to celebrate his first mobile suit kill because the yellow and black Zaku II F2 was already closing in on him. This machine was armed with the far more deadly MMP-80 90mm machine gun. 90mm bullets raked the GMs shield penetrating its already weakened surface and wrecked the arm carrying it; the deadly swarm of bullets smashed into the shoulder joint ripping the damaged arm from the GM. The Zaku II F2 shifted its line of attack to carry on into the torso of the GM but was foiled at the last moment by Timothy's desperate struggling with his controls. Timothy desperately tried to beat back the Zeon suit by holding his finger on his trigger. The beam spray gun lived up to its name as it sprayed mega particle beams out into space. One beam did manage to hit the Zaku II F2 but only sheered off one of the spike on its shoulder armour.  
  
With skill far exceeding anything Timothy could muster the Zaku pilot sent his machine into a sweeping roll that brought him round behind the GM, as he went into the roll his fired his machinegun sending 90mm bullets into the GM. The hail of bullets only stopped when the MMP-80s clip was empty. With a dispassionate click with empty clip slid from the machinegun and was quickly replaced. The GM was dead and with that the Zaku II F2 jetted off to rejoin its comrades.  
  
_End of the Tale_


	3. Tale Three

**Tale Three: Lieutenant James Keffer – RGM-79L GM Light Armour – Operation Star One  
**  
Lieutenant James Keffer's GM Light Armour stood on the hull of a Columbus transport. The monitors in his cockpit gave Keffer a superb view of the Earth Federation Space Forces fleet ranged against the space fortress A Baoa Qu. The forward elements of the fleet had already begun the attack and it would only a matter of time before Keffer's unit was in position to make its move.  
  
Then it came, the green light to go. Around him the standard GMs activated there thrusters and kicked off the hull of the Columbus. Keffer gently coerced a slow climb out of his GM Light Armour; he didn't want to waste fuel by dashing around like a madman. He was joined by the three other GM Light Armours that made up his 'hunting' party. Keffer had been given the nickname White Panther because he was known to stalk his enemies before killing them; a stylised white Panther head on a hexagonal black background quickly became his personal insignia.  
  
He keyed in the squadron communication channel, he wanted to give them at least one last message before minovsky particles made it impossible. 'Okay Panthers this is the big one try to stick together but if we get separated try to look after the little ones. I'll see you all on the other side.'  
  
'Copy that Panther Leader.'  
  
'Yes sir.'  
  
Confirmed Panther Leader.'  
  
Keffer heard the replies; he could feel the fear in their voices. They were all scared, they had barely escape Solomon with their lives and now they had to fight a battle that promised to be even more deadly. Even Keffer, the grimfaced veteran of Loum, had a feeling of dread growing in the pit of his stomach.  
  
_'I was piloting a crappy Sabrefish back than. Now I've got a machine that can take the fight to Zeon properly.'_  
  
Keffer shook his head and brought down the visor of his pilot's suit. They were closing in on Zeon defence lines. There were swarms of GMs, Balls and all manor of GM variations closing in on the line which seemed to have just as many mobile suits but with a far greater variety of types. He could various different types of Zaku as well as Rick Doms and even a scattering of the new Gelgoogs.  
  
Suddenly Keffer brought his GM Light Armour up to full speed and set course for a pack of Zaku IIs. The Zaku IIs spotted Keffer's approach and started to fire at him with their machineguns but Keffer was moving to fast for them to get a clean lock on. Keffer pulled his targeting scope out, as the twin crosshairs locked onto the first Zaku II Keffer squeezed the trigger. The torrent of mega particles leapt forth from his beam gun and lanced through space; the beam caught the Zaku II in its torso but it narrowly missed the reactor. Instead of exploding the Zaku II was sent spinning off but it was defiantly dead. Keffer quickly changed targets and let his crosshairs lock on again. This time he blasted the head off a Zaku II before placing beam right through the cockpit.  
  
Then, as quickly as they had approached, they were past the Zaku IIs. Keffer checked his side monitor and saw that his wingman was still with him and the young pilot had even managed to bag a pair of Zaku IIs himself. Rather than going back and finishing off the last pair of Zaku IIs Keffer decided to continue on towards A Baoa Qu. Out of the corner of his eye Keffer saw a Rick Dom firing its bazooka at point blank range at a turret on a Magellan class battleship, then a GM emerged from beneath the battleship and slashed the Rick Dom across its chest with a beam sabre. Off to another side he saw a Zaku II kicking a damaged Ball into a nearby GM. A shudder ran down is spine, this was desperate fighting.  
  
Out of the broiling melee a Gelgoog came hurtling towards Keffer's GM Light Armour. Keffer deftly avoided the first few beam rifle shots. Keffer tried to turn his GM quick enough to get around the Gelgoog but the Zeon mobile suit's high speed made that difficult. Keffer sent the GM into a climb and then span it back down, he succeeded in catching the Gelgoog off guard but the pair of shots he fired missed their mark.  
  
Suddenly the Gelgoog pulled out its twin beam sword and took a swipe at Keffer's GM. In reply Keffer activated his own beam sabre and blocked the attack. Keffer back off slightly but then rallied quickly and launched into a series of jabs aimed at the Gelgoog. The Gelgoog seemed to hesitate and Keffer deduced that the pilot wasn't particularly adept at melee fighting. He didn't get a chance to press his advantage as a pin point mega particle beam nailed the Gelgoog right in the centre of its chest. Keffer looked around to see where the beam had come from. Off to his right a GM Sniper II appeared and dropped a hand onto the GM Light Armour's shoulder.  
  
'Thanks for playing decoy White Panther.' Just as quickly as the GM Sniper II appeared it jetted off and merged into the general background.  
  
'Damnit Cole! That was meant to be my kill you good for nothing Earthnoid!' Keffer knew that the sniper would never be able to hear him but it felt good to release some of his pent-up tension.  
  
Keffer noticed that his wingman had returned from dispatching a Rick Dom. It looked as though the other GM Light Armour had taken some damage; he was half tempted to order the pilot back to the carrier to get it repaired. The GM Light Armour's were fragile machines, not designed to take a lot of punishment. However the decision was made for him when a hail of machinegun bullets ripped through the torso of the damaged GM Light Armour. Keffer was sure that the pilot couldn't possibly have survived. _Yet another friend I have to bury_.  
  
He could see the culprit, it was a Zaku II F2 painted black and yellow. 'Oh an ace, this is going to be fun.' A grim smile set upon his face, but there was a niggling feeling at the back of his mind as if he'd seen this Zaku before. Keffer forced himself to cast aside any doubts he might have, he had to do this.  
  
The Zaku II F2 was armed with a 90mm machinegun and was spraying bullets at Keffer's GM but he was too nimble to be hit. His own counterattacks failed to get results; the Zaku II F2 was able to dodge at just the right moment to avoid being hit. Keffer cursed under his breath but didn't give up; he pressed his attack forcing the Zeon ace to back off. A wild shot from his beam gun caught the right knee of the Zaku II F2 causing the mono-eyed machine to shudder violently. The Zaku returned fire and scored a hit to the beam gun. Keffer instantly threw the damaged weapon away and readied his beam sabre.  
  
Taking advantage of the momentary pause in the Zeon's attack, due to the need to replace the ammunition clip, Keffer surged forward towards the enemy mobile suit. He threw the sabre into a wide swipe and then dramatically swept it back in a shorter arch that sliced through the Zaku II F2s left arm. The Zeon pilot didn't allow the loss of the arm distract him, he rallied perfectly and let rip with his 90mm machinegun at the Federation mobile suits vulnerable flank. The 90mm bullets tore through the thin armour plating of the GM the head of destroyed first before the spare of bullets continued down through the GMs body.  
  
Keffer hammered on the GM Light Armour's controls but the whole system was dieing. One of the side monitors exploded and showered the cockpit with glass. He swore loudly expecting the final blow to come any second. However nothing happened, Keffer waited a little longer and still nothing happened. All the monitors were offline so he couldn't tell what was happening. Cursing again he undid the straps that held him in place he then triggered the hatch release and exited the cockpit.  
  
The GM Light Amour was drifting in a tint pocket of calm within the middle of one of the greatest space battles in history. The yellow and black Zaku II F2 had disappeared; Keffer surmised that the pilot must have thought he was dead already and in a strange sort of way he did feel dead. For the second time in the year he was left drifting in space while surrounded by terrible bloodshed.  
  
'Call yourself an ace do you? You could have at least finished the job properly!'  
  
_End of the Tale_


	4. Tale Four

**Tale Four: Ensign James Keffer – FF-S3 Saberfish – Operation Helion**

Ensign James Keffer was pleased to be involved in one of the Federation's first large scale offensives against the Principality of Zeon since the Battle of Loum. Operation Helion was planned to be a concerted effort by the Earth Federation Space Forces to sever the Principality's supply lines feeding their invasion of the Earth. Previously there had been a few raids and probing attacks; however the Earth Federation Space Forces had never ventured in strength from the safety of Luna II.

James' Saberfish squadron were waiting patiently in the hanger of a modified _Columbus_ class transport. While journeying to other battles James had always been bolted onto the hull of a cruiser or battleship; this was the first time he'd been in a dedicated carrier. The level service provided by the maintenance crews was far higher than he was used too.

James' carrier, and its attendant cruisers, was hiding amongst a 'shoal zone' of debris that had gathered in the Earth's orbit. Just a few months earlier this area had been part of the battleground where the 4th Fleet had attempted to intercept Zeon's Operation British. The area was littered with wrecks of warships from both sides and while it made excellent cover it was also rather uninviting.

The gruff central European voice of Captain Graser, the fighter wings commander, radiated from the speakers built into James's helmet, "The observers have sighted a pair of HLVs coming up from Earth. There's a pair of _Musais_ and a few transport with some missile boat escorts. Fleet has given us the escorts to destroy and any targets of opportunity. Good luck and good hunting!"

The massive cargo bay doors slowly began to open. Each of the _Columbus'_ cargo modules had been converted to carry fifteen Saberfish spacefighters, making thirty in total which was three squadrons worth of fighters. When the bay doors reached their limit, and were locked into place, the Saberfish spacefighters received a green light from the carrier's bridge and began streaming out into space.

The mass of Earth Federation fighters all cleared the debris field at the same time well ahead of the four _Salamis_ class cruisers that were supporting them. James could now see the Zeon vessels clearly. It appeared that the Federation forces had managed to catch the Zeons completely off guard since they hadn't launched their mobile suits yet.

The _Jicco_ missile assault boats were the first to react to the oncoming fighters. Three of the Zeon machines turned to face their attackers. They unleashed a torrent of missiles from their bow mounted launchers. James adroitly flicked his fighter in the gaps between the missiles. Out of the corner of his eye James could see more than one Saberfish getting hit head on by a missile and exploding in a sheet of flame. He pushed his fighter's rocket engines to full burn and zoomed in on the nearest _Jicco_. As he got closer he let rip with his nose mounted machineguns. He sprayed the bridge of the _Jicco_ with a hail of bullets. Not even the reinforced glass of the bridge window was able to withstand the onslaught. As the window smashed James loosed a missile into the space. The resulting explosion ripped the missile boat apart.

Not wanting to waste time James swung his fighter around and proceeded to along the line of the Zeon fleet. He checked over his shoulder once to make sure that his wingwoman Wendy Lockhart was still with him; she was and that made him feel better. Wendy was a new pilot and he didn't really want to loose another comrade in this war. By now the rest of the fighters were engaging the Zeon defenders and even the _Musais_ were turning to fight the Federation forces.

A number of the little _Komusai_ shuttles were gathered around the lead _Papua_ transport. James took the opportunity to pump a pair of missiles into the rear of a _Komusai_ and watch it exploded into a fireball. As his flight zoomed past Wendy picked off a _Komusai_ of her own.

Suddenly a large missile zoomed past James's canopy missing him by few centimetres. He desperately craned his neck to see where the attack had come from. To his great surprise there was a squadron of Zeon Gattle spacefighters launching from the second _Papua_ transport. None of the intelligence reports for the operation has suggested there would be any Zeon spacefighters. James swore under his breath and desperately tried to pull his Saberfish around to face the newcomers.

The Gattle, with its massive thrusters, had superior speed to the Saberfish however the Saberfish had better manoeuvring capabilities. James was able to throw his fighter into a tight turn bringing him in close to the Gattles. His machineguns rained bullets down upon a hapless Gattle, riddling the cockpit with bullet holes and killing the pilots.

James could see that Wendy had failed to loop round like he had and that a pair of Gattles was harassing her. The two Zeon machines were throwing up a wall of bullets around Wendy's Saberfish but she was managing to keep on step a head of them. James nipped in behind the pair. With a flick of his thumb he switched from his machineguns to missiles. He lined up his crosshairs on the right hand side Gattle and fired off two missiles. The missiles sailed through space and then hammered into the Gattle's fuselage and exploded. The Zeon spacefigher disintegrated causing its wingman to veer away sharply. However as the Gattle began to break away a burst from its machineguns racked the back of Wendy's Saberfish. James swore and quickly switched back to his machineguns and proceeded to strafe the Zeon machine. His hail of bullets hit the large missiles mounted on the fuselage; causing an explosion that sent the fighter to tumble out of control. James suspected that if the pilots failed to bring the fighter under control they'd be caught by the Earth's atmosphere.

With the immediate threat neutralised James brought his Saberfish up close to Wendy's in order to assess the damaged. It didn't look good and thus when their cockpits came level he gave the "Return to Carrier" hand signal. Wendy nodded a reply and turned her fighter for home. Since minovsky particle interference was so common on the battlefields on the Earth sphere the Federation fighter pilots had developed a complex set of hand signals to pass instructions from pilot to pilot.

From his position on the battlefield James could see that the Zeons had managed to deploy their Zaku IIs; and that they were causing no end of trouble for the other Saberfish fighters. In the far distance he saw one of the _Papua's_ burned down by coordinated mega particle beam attacks from two of the _Salamis_ cruisers. Unfortunately the battle wasn't totally the Federation's way as another one of the _Salamis_ had been killed by the Zeon _Musais_.

James turned his head back towards the Earth and he could see the HLVs powering their way through the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Sensing a target of opportunity he set his Saberfish on an intercept course and the powered his thrusters up to maximum speed.

It didn't take very long for James to reach the first HLV. Realising that his Saberfish's machinguns wouldn't even dent the HLV's armoured hull he switched over to missiles and began pelting the heavy lifting vehicle. He threw the fighter into a wide roll so that he could attack the HLV from below. Lining up the shop perfectly he sent a quartet of missiles into the massive thruster array that was lifting the HLV. The missiles damaged enough of the thrusters to cause the HLV to waver. Earth's gravity still had enough of a hold on the HLV to begin dragging it back down.

A smile emerged on James' face. He could see the HLV begin to burn up since the ravages of his attacks had nullified its ability to survive re-entry. James knew that burning up in the atmosphere was a pretty crappy way to die, but to him they were just Zeons and deserved whatever death Fate threw at them.

_End of the Tale_


	5. Tale Five

**Tale Five: Lieutenant Peter Baynham - AMX-009 Dreissen – Neo Zeon Civil War**

The grey paintwork on Lieutenant Peter Baynham's Dreissen signified his choosing to support Gremmi Toto in the Neo Zeon Civil War. The decision hadn't come easily to Peter but he felt that Haman Karn no longer represented the great ideals of Neo Zeon. Toto might be slightly deranged but he would not have gone as easily on the Earth Federation as Haman had been. Peter had even heard rumours that Haman had allowed Mineva Zabi to be abducted; that was intolerable. The desire to return the Mineva Zabi line to the throne of Zeon in Side 3 had fired the drive of the youth in Axis for the whole of their exile.

Peter stared out into the gulf of space that separated the two Neo Zeon forces; Haman's troops were advancing under the cover of a dummy and real asteroid field. Peter steeled his resolve; he was determined to see this through to the end. Gradually his thoughts turned to his twin brother Steven. Peter hadn't seen or even talked to his brother for several months, not since they served together on Earth. Naturally Peter was worried about his brother and he prayed that he was safe but right now there was nothing he could do for him.

Peter could see hundreds of pin pricks of light heading towards Gremmi's forces. He estimated that Haman's troops probably outnumbered Gremmi's. He knew however that Gremmi had a few aces up his sleeve in the form of the Newtype Corps and Rakan Dakaran's Doven Wolf team. By now the pin pricks of light had turned into identifiable mobile suits; Peter could see many different types of mobile suits, lots of Gaza-Ds, Dreissens, Zssas and Ga-Zowms were swarming around.

"For the Glory of Zeon!" roared Peter as he pushed his Dreissen to top speed and charged towards Haman's forces.

Targeting the nearest Gaza-D Peter let rip with his arm mounted tri-barrel beam cannons. The cannons spewed mega particle beams at the Gaza-D, which tried to evade the onslaught, the beams tore through the purple mobile suit's right leg before continuing up into the torso. The reactor breached in a brilliant white flash but Peter didn't pause long enough to register it.

A swift hand movement activated the control switch that drew the Dreissen's melee weapon staff from its storage rack. Through the asteroids Peter spotted his next target, a Ga-Zowm. Peter pushed his powerful thrusters to the max as he charged through the asteroids. As he closed in he activated the beam tomahawk end of the staff and whipped it around in an arch. At the last moment the Ga-Zowm pilot detected the grey Dreissen and started to evade; the beam tomahawk sliced through the Ga-Zowm's hyper knuckle buster. Cursing loudly Peter span his weapon around, deactivating the tomahawk and activating the beam lancer end. He went in with a jab but the Ga-Zowm evaded again and Peter only managed to graze its right knee. The Ga-Zowm replied with a volley from its 80mm Vulcan guns but the Dreissen's thick armour shrugged off the assault. Peter stabbed again and this time the beam lancer pierced the armour plating surrounding the Ga-Zowm's cockpit.

Before he could savour the victory he was forced to evade as a barrage of missiles swarmed towards him. Peter sent his Dreissen into a wide arch and let rip with his arm mounted tri-barrel beam cannons. The origin of the missiles was a Zssa artillery mobile suit complete with additional boosters and launchers. The Zssa ducked behind an asteroid as Peter's beams raced towards it. Thrusting round the asteroid the Zssa again fired off another barrage, this time at near point blank range. Unable to evade or counter Peter's Dreissen was hit by a missile shredded the Dom-like mobile suit's left arm, a second quickly joined the first and blasted the damaged arm off at the shoulder.

"I won't let some upstart like you defeat me!" yelled Peter as he pushed his damaged Dreissen to its very limits. He let loose another flurry of beam fire from his still operation tri-barrel beam cannon. These beams sheared through the Zssa's weak armour and detonated the remaining missiles in its launchers; the beleaguered Haman loyalist mobile suit was torn asunder by secondary explosions.

Peter allowed himself to relax briefly to assess his situation. He quickly ran a test on all the Dreissen's major systems and they were all still functioning within tolerable limits. He could either, play it safe and return to Axis to have the arm repaired, or he could continue fighting despite the damage. A review of the battle situation around him suggested that the two Neo Zeon forces were evenly matched; the Doven Wolf team was still advancing and the mighty Quin Mantha was cutting a bloody path through Haman's lines.

Ultimately the decision was made for Peter by someone else as a great green mobile suit burst through the asteroids firing its claw mounted beam guns. Peter flung his Dreissen into an evasive pattern of movement; he instantly recognised his opponent mobile suit.

"Hamma Hamma? Those are pretty rare," he muttered through gritted teeth. 'Damn. This could be tough.'

Peter knew all about the Hamma Hamma's qusai-psycommu system; he'd been part of the mock battle testing operations, flying against qusai-psycommu mobile suit prototypes. While the system was nowhere near as good as a real newtype, and it took a truly exceptional oldtype pilot to bring out the systems fullest capabilities, but he knew enough to fear its potential power.

Peter turned a fired off a volley from his tri-beam cannon before jetting off into a more densely packed portion of the asteroid field. The Hamma Hamma continued on unabated, letting loose a torrent of mega particles from its beam guns. Unbeknownst to Peter the Hamma Hamma pilot released one of the wire-guided claws, controlled through the qusai-psycommu, it snaked its way through the asteroids to the very limit of its range.

Peter kept his speedy dash through the asteroid field going; all the while he could see the Hamma Hamma eating up the distance between them. He quickly realised that he wouldn't be able to out pace the green mobile suit therefore he had to fight back. Suddenly he flung the Dreissen around to face down the marauding Hamma Hamma, he trained his targeting retinal on the Hamma Hamma and pulled his trigger sending a stream of beams lancing through space. At the same instance the Hamma Hamma pilot triggered the wire-guided beam guns that had snaked their way around behind the Dreissen. Peter's attack struck the Hamma Hamma on its right shoulder, unfortunately for Peter the damaged was only light. The Hamma Hamma's attack was far more accurate; first the right leg was blow clean away, then the mega particle beams smashed there way up through the Dreissens back. Peter died before he even realised he'd been hit.

_End of Tale_


	6. Tale Six

**Tale Six: Ensign Charlie Pilger – RGM-89M Jegan – The Last Stand of the 3rd Fleet**

Ensign Charlie Pilger sighed heavily. The last few days had been extremely harrowing for the young mobile suit pilot. The Crossbone Vanguard assault on the Frontier Side had caught the whole 3rd Fleet off guard and many good men lost their lives during the desperate days leading up to this final showdown. Charlie's mobile suit unit barely escape Frontier III before it was overrun. They'd fled to Frontier I, the only colony still under the control of the Federation; here the remnants of the 3rd Fleet had gathered; there would be no retreating from this colony.

Charlie drummed his hands on the mobile suits controls. He hated waiting like this; they all knew the Crossbone Vanguard would attack but they didn't know when. Waiting for the enemy was bad enough but he was also waiting for the cruisers mechanics to finish fixing the power regulators in his Jegan's left leg; they'd been playing up since the he'd escaped Frontier III. Charlie had only just been assigned to the _Triumph_, to fill up its depleted roster, and hadn't got to know the support crew yet but he'd been assured by his new squadron commander that they were highly skilled. Charlie didn't entirely trust them; he was very protective of his mobile suit.

Charlie's Jegan was the first in the hanger and therefore he had a glorious view of the expanse of space beyond the 3rd Fleet's deployment area. Something in the twinkling stars caught his attention. Some of the stars were getting closer and now he could see a few red lights flashing on and off. The Crossbone Vanguard had arrived.

"Heads up boys the Crossbone Vanguard are making their appearance," declared Lieutenant Graves, the mobile suit commander of the _Triumph_. "We only have to hold them here. Don't worry there are reinforcements heading our way from Luna when they get here we'll be able to trash those spacenoid bastards."

"Hey Lieutenant not all of us spacenoids are bastards," piped up Charlie. He brought up an external camera image of Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon that was standing behind Charlie's Jegan.

"Oh sorry Ensign," replied Lieutenant Graves in a rather apologetic tone of voice. "Just got a bit carried away. Are you ready?"

"Yes sir, ready to trash some spacenoid bastards." replied the spacenoid ensign with a wry smile on his face.

As the Crossbone Vanguard fleet closed in on the Earth Federation Forces the big guns of the Federation cruisers opened up. Torrents of mega particle beams spewed forth from the main guns of the Federation's ragtag collection of cruisers concurrently they launched a barrage of missiles. There were a handful of bright flashes and Charlie prayed that some of the Crossbone Vanguard mobile suits had been destroyed in the barrage. In response the Crossbone Vanguard fleet loosed their own barrage of red mega particle beams.

Before long the Earth Federation mobile suits were disgorged from their cruisers and slowly began to move in on the Vanguard's leading units. Charlie used these last few moments of peace to run over some last system checks. Charlie could now clearly see the waves of grey Den'an Zons and Den'an Geis heading in his direction. From his previous experience battling the Vanguard he knew that the smaller mobile suits had a considerable advantage in manoeuvrability. It wasn't even like his Jegan had a great advantage in firepower or armour.

A pair of Den'an Zons came screaming out of the greater Vanguard formation. Their shot lancer mounted heavy machineguns sprayed fire as they closed in. Charlie brought up his shield ad gently tapped his controls to avoid the hail of fire. As the immediate threat passed he swung up his beam rifle and squeezed off a shot. The beam held true but we blocked by one of the Den'an Zon's beam shields. Charlie cursed under his breath, beam shields were probably the single greatest advantage the Crossbone Vanguard had over the Earth Federation.

Deciding that attacking was probably his best option Charlie pushed his Jegan into chasing the two Den'an Zons. He dropped his crosshairs over one of the grey mobile suits and pressed his trigger. The small mobile suit was unable to bring its beam shield into play and thus it started on a radical swerving flight path. Charlie succeeded in only clipping its right leg and failing to do any real damage. The Den'an Zon quickly swung around and fired its shot lancer at Charlie. With only seconds to spare he was able to bring up his shield; and even then the shot lancer's tip easily penetrated the shield and was left sticking out of it. The shock of the attack had caused Charlie to allow his Jegan to come to a near stop and for a few horrifying moments he thought the Den'an Zon would finish him off. However to his surprise a hail of machinecannon fire struck the Den'an Zon. The intensity of the hail shredded the grey mobile suit, destroying its ability to fight back.

Charlie turned his mobile suit to see Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon; there was a large swarm of used machinecannon cartridges floating away from the artillery support mobile suit. He took the opportunity to remove the shot lancer from his shield and throwing it away.

By now the second Den'an Zon had come about and was closing in on Charlie's position. He fired off a few shots with his beam rifle but they were blocked by the Den'an Zon's beam shield. Then Charlie noticed something. Each time the shield took a beam hit it took a few moments for it to return to full strength. The window of opportunity was shorter than the shot spacing of his beam rifle but perhaps if they tried something different. He switched his weapons selector over to his waist mounted rocket launchers. He fired off three rockets at the Crossbone Vanguard mobile suit and then switched his selector back over to the beam rifle. Two of the rockets were easily avoided but the third was bang on target. A fraction of a second before the rocket hit Charlie fired the beam rifle. The rocket hit the beam shield and his mega particle beam sneaked through the gap in the Den'an Zon's defences. The beam tore through the grey mobile suits torso and caused the reactor to explode.

Before Charlie could congratulate himself the purple shape of a Berga Giros emerged from the Crossbone Vanguard formation. Before Charlie knew what was happening the Berga Giros was bearing down on Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon. What happened next was so fast Charlie could barely believe it. The Berga Giros jammed its shot lancer into the G-Cannon's head and fired its quartet of heavy machineguns into the torso. Charlie knew instantly that Lieutenant Graves was dead; his now heavily damaged G-Cannon was drifting lifelessly.

Charlie swore and fired off a few beam rifle shots at the Berga Giros. The purple mobile suit avoided with such grace and speed that it made the Den'an Zon seem like a slug. The Berga Giros slipped out of Charlie's vision and be desperately tried to find it again. He didn't even see the Berga Giros fire its shot lancer into the back of his Jegan. The electromagnetic acceleration drove the shot lancer's tip through the Jegan's titanium alloy ceramic composite armour.

_End of the Tale_


	7. Tale Seven

**Tale Seven: Corporal Robert Croft - OZ-06MS Leo – Sometime after Operation Daybreak**

United Earth Sphere Alliance Corporal Robert Croft was not in a very good mood. Days earlier the Specials had launched their Operation Daybreak while his mobile suit platoon had been away from their base on a long range patrol. When they returned to the base they found it in disarray Croft immediately ordered his platoon in to assist the garrison but was forced back, loosing two of his men in the process. A handful of the base's other mobile suits escaped with Croft however the victorious Specials began hunting the Alliance escapees. Forced into the mountains north of Kabul the Alliance force was whittled down to just three machines. Now their hopes rested with reaching the Khyber Pass and escaping south.

Croft checked the status readouts of his Leo for the eighth time in five minutes. The trio of Earth Alliance Leos were kneeling in a lightly forested ravine some twenty-five miles north of the Khyber Pass. Their journey had been halted when they detected a pair of attack helicopters searching the area. Croft knew the Leos could easily defeat the helicopters but he couldn't risk revealing their position because he knew the Specials mobile suits wouldn't be far behind. Croft's Leo was carrying one of the powerful doberguns on its right shoulder. He was well aware that the cannon caused excessive stress on a Leo's arm when fired but right now Croft wanted its firepower, even if he only had two rounds of ammunition left.

"Miguel can you still see them?" he spoke into the microphone attached to the cable that had been run out to Miguel, who was observing the surroundings from a hiding place at the head of the ravine.

Croft was forced to wait several agonising seconds for Miguel's reply. "Yes sir, but they are moving away to the north east," Croft let out a sigh of relief, a little longer and they would be able to continue their journey. "Wait! I've spotted another pair and they are heading right for us!"

"Damn! Miguel get back here now," barked Croft. He quickly switched over to the other cable, which was slung between the Leos. "Sara get ready we've got company,"

"What is it boss?" asked Sara in a rather sleepy voice, she had been trying to get some rest.

"A pair of attack helicopters we have to kill them quickly,"

"Yes sir!" she exclaimed as she brought her Leo up to full height. The attack helicopters were upon them in no time but it only took a short burst from Sara's 105mm machinegun to send the lead machine crashing to the earth in flames. The second tried to bank away but caught a burst from Croft's machinegun, held in the Leo's left hand, in the tail.

"Good work team. Lets get out of here," said Croft as he spotted Miguel clambering into his Leo.

"I think we've got a problem," said Sara in a rather hesitant voice. "I think that last one got off a signal."

"Damn, double time it people," ordered Croft. "Those Specials traitors will on us in no time."

The trio of Leos lumbered away as quickly as they could in the rough terrain. Croft cursed his luck; this revolution had really screwed everything up he had been in line for a promotion at the end of the month. He had hoped to get away from this dull backwater posting to where all the action was. He didn't expect anything like a revolution to happen.

In the distance he spotted the tell tale vapour trails of a mobile suit transport plane. The Specials had found them. By now the trio of Leos had reached the relative openness of the grassy foothills; there was little cover for the sixteen meter tall mobile suits they would have to fight in the open. As the fat grey transport plane closed in Croft could see it deploy three Leo mobile suits by parachute, he was expecting more but was grateful that it would be an even fight.

"Okay team lets do this!" declared Croft. "It's three on three we can take them. Keep moving, don't stop for a second, it might reduce your accuracy but it makes you harder to hit."

As both of his wing mates called in their replies Croft set his Leo going down the foothills towards the approaching Leos. He repositioned the torso slightly so that his shoulder shield was in place to take the inevitable machinegun attacks. Just as he predicted the Specials Leos came to a stop and began rattling away with their 105mm machineguns. He could feel his Leo shuddering as the round shield deflected the attacks. Detecting a slight gap in right hand side Specials Leo's attack pattern Croft swung the Dobergun onto target and fired. He missed the Leo's torso but the dober round drift down and tore through its right leg sending the war machine crashing to the ground. Croft instantly took the opportunity to finish off the downed Leo by placing a few machinegun rounds into its chest.

Croft turned just in time to see Sara's Leo cut down by coordinated machinegun fire from the other two Specials Leos. He swore loudly and set his Leo racing towards them spraying wildly with his machinegun. Most of his shots missed but two struck the right arm of one of the Leos destroying his machinegun which gave Miguel the opportunity to gun down the defenceless Specials Leo. 

The lone Specials Leo began to back away as the pair of Alliance machines closed in on it. It let loose a hail of machinegun bullets at Miguel's Leo but he was able to sidestep at just the right moment so that only the Leo's left arm was destroyed. Croft was more careful with his shots as he blew off its right knee, causing the Specials Leo to stumble, and then placed a quartet of bullets through its head and cockpit.

Panting heavily from the exhaustion of battle Croft quickly scanned the wreckage on the battlefield. "Miguel can you see if Sara survived that hit?" he managed finally.

"Hard to tell sir there are a..." Miguel's transmission was cut off mid-sentence as his Leo was racked by chaingun fire and missiles causing it to explode in an enormous fireball.

Croft swung his Leo around to see a pair of Aries finish their strafing run on Miguel's Leo. He was shocked and then angry with himself. He should have realised that the transport would deposit some Aries as well. He knew sending out just three Leos was odd when there was room for more in the plane.

The pair of Aries began to come back around so that they could attack him. Ignoring his own advice Croft stopped his Leo and brought the dobergun up to aim. He knew hitting one of the Aries was a long shot but right now the he was willing to try anything. He dropped his crosshairs over the first Aries and fired. Guided by luck or fate the dober round ripped through the Aries' torso and a few seconds later it burst into flames as its fuel tanks ignited. The death of its comrade caused the remaining Aries to break off its attack. This gave Croft the chance to detach the now ammunition less dobergun from its bracket on the Leo's right shoulder. Croft allowed a slightly manic smile creep onto his face. He was pushing is luck to breaking point and was convinced that the God of Death would come to take him soon. 

What transpired next happened so quickly Croft barely knew what happened. He could remember the Aries heading straight for him firing its chaingun all the way and he could remember firing back. He distinctly remember having his Leo's right arm blown right off and the searing pain as his right hand monitor exploded, showering him in glass. He remember seeing the Aries begin to smoke as it passed him by and its final attack that trashed the Leo's left knee which caused the green war machine to fall to a kneeling position.

Croft cracked the seal on his cockpit and clambered out, all the while trying not to aggravate the deep gash on his right arm. He surveyed the area and spotted the last Aries, now a burning wreck where it had collided with a hill. He could also see what looked like Sara dragging herself from her ruined Leo. Robert Croft sighed heavily and took a cigarette from the packet in his pocket he paused the light it on the red hot twisted remains of his Leo's right arm and then said "I think I'm getting a headache."

_End of the Tale_


	8. Tale Eight

**Tale Eight: Corporal David Berghahn- OZ-07MS Tragos – Sometime after Operation Daybreak**

It was bitterly cold inside the cockpit of David Berghahn's Tragos mobile suit even with the heat set to full. Falling snow had now almost totally covered the brown mobile suit in its hiding place just behind a low ridge; along with David's wingman's Tragos. It had been roughly three weeks since OZ had launched Operation Daybreak the bloody revolution had scattered the United Earth Sphere Alliance forces all over the world with no formal command structure. David had been part of the Alliance's elite 3rd Artillery Regiment, stationed in Oslo, but now that once mighty formation had been reduced to a handful of isolated mobile suit teams. Pursued by OZ relentlessly David, and a few other survivors, had been forced into the northern reaches of Finland. It angered David greatly to think that after weeks of running away from OZ they suddenly stumbled upon an OZ base not far from the town of Kemi.

David rubbed his hands together to try and work some warmth back into them while he checked his targeting sights again. They were trained on the entrance to the large cavern that formed the mobile suit hanger of the OZ base. The natural cavern had allowed the hanger to be built quickly and over a greater deal of protection than a fabricated one, due to the thickness of the rock. However if the cannons of the Tragos were employed correctly it would be possibly to cause a cave in blocking the only exit of the hanger. At least that was the plan. David and his comrades had decided to raid the base for supplies since they were running dangerously low on munitions and foodstuffs.

It still surprised David that the base's defences were so lacked that they had allowed a pair of Tragos to sneak up so close to the base. Apparently when the Alliance renegades lost their OZ pursuers by slipping into Finland the local bases hadn't been alerted of their presence in the area.

"Is everyone ready?" David asked his comrades. "Lets get this over with, I'm bloody freezing."

"Keep your pants on Dave," replied Walter Smith, one of the two Aries pilots. "We are ready to go as soon as you goats start the firing."

"Let's get moving! My beam rifle wants a chunk of OZ armour," replied the slightly manic Leo pilot Mikhail Kostrinov.

David sighed and switched his communication channel over to his fellow Tragos pilot. "You ready Junior?"

"Yes sir. I've got my sights set on the communications centre and ready to switch to my secondary targets." replied Sam "Junior" Greene.

"Remember make sure you leave one of the aircraft carriers. We'll need it to escape," ordered David.

He flexed his fingers a few times before taking hold of the Tragos' control sticks. He checked the gun sights were on target one last time before pressing the trigger. The recoil of both cannons firing caused the snow to fall off the brown goat-like mobile suit. Straight away he could see his attack was a success. The rocky outcrop above the entrance to the hanger was already starting to crumble. At the same time David could see that Junior had knocked out the communications centre. Similarly Smith and his wingman were taking off and Mikhail's Leo was striding towards the base.

David's second barrage brought down even more rock well and truly blocking the hanger entrance. The bases' perimeter surveillance was lacklustre but apparently someone in there was more prepared because David would already see tanks and attack helicopters scrambling to repulse the attackers. David's next shots demolished as vehicle hanger while the Aries suits began duelling with the attack helicopters. Deciding to move in closer to the base David fired up the Tragos' hovercraft engines, shaking away the last of the snow surrounding the artillery mobile suit in the process. The Tragos easily traversed the ridge and began cruising down into the base to support Mikhail.

The OZ tank force was trying to use their numerical advantage to overwhelm the green mobile suit. Unfortunately for them their weapons were having little effect on the Leo other than disrupting its balance. Mikhail had already gunned down several of the tanks with his beam rifle but David knew that a lucky shot from anyone of them could knockout the Leo's main camera or disable a limb. As he came into range David fired his beam pistol; though short ranged and low powered the pistols beam was more than powerful enough to penetrate the tanks armour. His first beam burned through the engine block of one tank with the resulting explosion blowing off the turret. The second well placed shot tore a turret from its mounting while Mikhail too the opportunity to stamp on a fleeing tank. The other fleeing tanks were caught in a deadly crossfire between the renegade Alliance ground and air assets. To save on their limited resources the pair of Aries landed as soon as the tanks were destroyed.

"Okay people, sweep sectors and give us an all clear," ordered David over the radio. He quickly got back four replies stating the area was clear. "Junior bring in the APCs and let's swipe as much stuff as we can before they clear the hanger." He didn't even get to finish the sentence properly before an almighty explosion rocked the base. David turned just in time to see huge chunks of rock being flung into the air by the explosion at the entrance to the mobile suit hanger. He could already see a quartet of blue OZ Leos clambering into the open. "Damn it I thought that would take longer. Light 'em up people do not let them get into the open!"

The first burst of 105mm machinegun fire from the OZ Leos caught the back of David's hovercraft engine. The machinegun rounds easily penetrated the weaker armour around the engine. David swore loudly as he hammered the control that detached the hovercraft block; the force of the exploding engine block threw the Tragos forward luckily the mobile suit's legs dropped back into place in time for the Tragos to land relatively safely. Mikhail trained his beam rifle on the lead blue Leo and burned a gapping hole through its torso with a well placed beam. However that was not enough to prevent two of the Leos from riddling one of the Aries with holes. Smith, in the remaining Aries, immediately took off and fired off a trio of missiles from the launchers on his wing hardpoints. Although two of the missiles missed one of them tore through the left leg of a Leo causing it to crash to the ground.

By now David had regained control of his Tragos and was getting ready to fire his cannons. The remaining two Leos were still clustered around the entrance to the hanger, obviously not wanting to move to far out of cover while still blaring away with their machineguns. Not waiting to consider what might happen he dropped his crosshairs on the two Leos and fired. The two cannon rounds easily tore through the Leos but they didn't stop there and continued on into the hanger. The resulting fireball was rather large and rather impressive but it at least finished off the last of the OZ resistance on the base.

"Nice work goat-boy. You just torched the sole reason for this attack," commented Mikhail despairingly.

"Shut up Mikhail, there is still plenty of equipment for use to salvage," snapped David in reply.

"But what now?" asked Walter Smith as his Aries landed. "We can't hang around here and there aren't any nearby surviving Alliance bases."

"I've got an idea," stated David. "Before the Alliance forces news network went black there was a report that the Reykjavik base repulsed the initial Specials take-over attempt. We should be able to make it using one of the transport planes from here and hopefully they are still holding out."

"And if they are not?" asked Mikhail.

"Then we'll keep going until we find somewhere. I'm not giving up yet." 

_End of the Tale_


	9. Tale Nine

**Tale Nine: Martin Peterson - GAT-01 Strike Dagger – The Battle for Panama**

Martin Peterson hated having to wait, especially with the battle raging above their heads but his mobile suit unit had not been given orders to sortie yet. He couldn't understand why they where still waiting while the ground forces were getting slaughtered, as usual; it would only be a matter of time before they broke. The whole purpose of the mobile suit units was to fight the ZAFT mobile suits and yet they were waiting in a dank hanger while their prey ran riot.

Martin drummed his fingers on the controls of his Strike Dagger; he exhaled loudly and tried to relax. He was nervous enough as it was but the waiting was making it worse. It was true he relished the idea of fighting the Coordinators on an equal footing but this would be the first time of him using a mobile suit in battle, which was enough to put anyone's nerves on edge. He could feel the vibrations of distant explosions; ZAFT's missile barrage was systematic and extensive and Martin feared that the hanger would be breached before he could launch.

As far as he was concerned the Coordinators were an affront to all humanity. No mere mortal had the right to play god, and that was exactly what the Coordinators and the fiends who created them were trying to do. In place as beautiful as the Earth only pure humans were worthy enough to live there.

Suddenly the speakers in the cockpit crackled into life. 'All units prepare for launch. All units repel the ZAFT assault.'

'Alright it's about time!' snarled Martin. 'Time to show these Coordinator trash a thing or two about combat.'

'Keep that attitude in check Peterson!' ordered Martin's unit commander. 'Concentrate on your mission.'

The heavily armoured doors that protected the mobile suit hanger slowly opened, as they did so sunlight flooded in illuminating the OMNI Enforcer mobile suits. One by the one the Strike Daggers began their walk out of the hanger and into the battle. When Martin stepped out into the sunlight he could see all the way down the hills to the harbour. Martin could tell that the defenders down in the harbour had been hit hard, missiles and DINN mobile suits seemed to fill the air. The shoreline was crawling with the ugly ZAFT amphibious mobile suits and further inland from them were the GINNs.

'Abominations! I'll kill every last one of you!' he yelled as he pushed the Strike Dagger to full speed and charged down the hillside. His first target was a GINN that had become separated from its comrades. The GINN certainly didn't expect to a mobile suit charging towards it and was caught off guard. As he closed in Martin punched out with his shielded arm, the GINN was hit on the head by the pronged end of the shield. There was enough force to cause the GINN to trip over the wreckage of an Earth Alliance tank. As the GINN lay prone on the floor Martin fired his beam rifle into its torso causing the whole suit to explode.

Martin started to laugh manically. 'Is that the best you've got? Man Plus eh? You're all nothing but trash not worthy of the name human! I will send you all to burn in the fires of hell!'

He forced a thruster assisted jump out of his Strike Dagger to send it over the forest and towards the shoreline. His landing was heavy and caused the earth mobile suit to shudder. He spotted another ZAFT mobile suit making its way up the beach; the library database in his mobile suits computer identified it as a ZnO mass production transforming amphibious mobile suit.

A smile formed on Martin's face. 'It looks like a bug, so I'll squash it like one!'

The ZnO spotted Martin's advance and swung its long spindly arms around to fire energy cannons mounted in the palms of its hands. Martin adroitly dodged the beams and returned fire with his beam rifle; his two shots missed and only succeeded in throwing up a shower of dust and dirt. Martin swore under his breath and advanced again. This time the ZnO fired off its missile launchers, sending a barrage of 533mm missiles towards. Much to Martin's relief only one missile managed to do any damaged and that was only to clip of the bottom of his shield. Using his mobile suit's superior ground speed Martin circled the ZAFT mobile suit, he readied his beam rifled again and fired a series of shots. The first burned through the large crest on the ZnO's head while another sheared through the right arms armour plating sending the limb falling to the ground. Martin's thumb hit the selector button that activated the computer controls to lock the beam rifle onto the rear skirt armour hardpoint. Next he drew his beam sabre the yellow blade burst into life as he charged in under the ZnO's flailing left arm where he rammed the beam sabre into the ZnO's chest. Just as quickly as he struck Martin withdrew and fell back to the relative cover of the forest; as he retreated the ZnO exploded in a shower of burning metal.

Martin was elated. Mobile suit combat was better than he could possible imagine, he didn't know why he'd been so nervous before. The only downside so far had been the poor quality of his opponents. 'Coordinator trash! Don't you have anyone worthy of fighting me? If you're all this weak I'll have no fun!'

Martin's ranting was replied to by a volley of machinegun fire from a group of passing DINNs. He placed his beam sabre back in its recharge socket and pulled out the beam rifle while using his shield to block the hail of bullets. He wasn't entirely successful as a stray round damaged his right knee joint. 'I'll clip your wings!'

He fired off a quartet of shots but missed the DINNs as they turned to strafe him again. The bullets began raining down again but Martin shifted his Strike Dagger to the left and fired again. This time his shot blasted through the wing binder of the lead DINN. The damaged DINN span out of control and hurtled towards the earth before ploughing through the forest and exploding.

Martin only half noticed the EMP blast before it enveloped his Strike Dagger. Then the cockpit turned dark as all the electronics went dead. 'What's this? What the hell is this? Move you pile of junk! Move!'

The remaining DINNs landed near the now crippled Strike Dagger and became to move in on it. Martin struggled with the manual release for his cockpit hatch, when it opened he could see the DINNs menacing approaching, he started to laugh again. 'Bastards! It took cheap trickery for you to beat me! For a blue and natural wor…' He was cut off by the two DINNs letting rip with their machine guns.

_End of the Tale_


	10. Tale Ten

**Tale Ten: David Goodman – MBF-M1 M1 Astray – The Battle of Orb**

Things were looking grim for the Orb Union. The storm clouds of war were gathering above the island nation and it didn't look as if there was anything anyone could do to prevent the coming battle. David Goodman was sat uneasily in the cockpit of his M1 Astray mobile suit. David was not a violent man by nature he favoured finding peaceful solutions to conflicts, that was one of the reasons he came to Orb in the first place, but right now he couldn't stand by and allow his home to be invaded. The Earth Alliance had gone too far this time, the people of Orb weren't going to roll over and play dead.

David fiddled with the collar of his blue and white pilot suit, it seemed strange to him to be wearing such an item but since the rest of the M1 pilots had them he followed suit. He could understand wearing the helmet in order to protect his head but was the rest of it really necessary; he was starting to get uncomfortable. The south Pacific was warm enough without the pilot suit adding to it. His nerves weren't helping either; he started tapping his right foot on his foot rest.

Then the order came to launch. The Earth Alliance fleet was sending a hailstorm of missiles to pound Onogoro Island into dust. The cage that surrounded David's M1 retracted and so David nudged his machine forward slowly, he joined the queue of M1s marching towards the hanger exit. As the red and white Astrays stomped their way out onto the surface they took up positions along the coastline. David brought his M1 to a stop on a hillock overlooking the main harbour. Orb's fleet of _Aegis_ cruisers and the shore based linear gun carriers were already firing on the incoming missiles but the _Aegis'_ were getting dragged into battle with the Earth Alliance cruisers so a lot of the missiles were getting through. The M1s of the 'Astray girls' test pilots had begun firing on the missiles, following their lead David pulled his targeting scope from the side of his chair and tried a few experimental shots that unfortunately missed. Suddenly a quartet of green beams burned a great hole through the missile swarm. Taken aback by the power of the attack David looked around to find its origin then to his left he spotted the space battleship _Archangel_ emerging from its hiding place. The sight of the mighty warship was greatly reassuring to David.

Unfortunately they were unable to stop a great deal of the missiles and they hammered the harbour. Then the Earth Alliance _Tarawa_ assault landing ships cruised in close to the shoreline to drop off their load of mobile suits. The Strike Daggers couldn't easily get to David but from the hillock David had a great field of fire down the coastline to where the Strike Daggers were making their landing. He aimed his Type 71 beam rifle and then pressed the trigger. His first green beam blasted off the right arm of a Strike Dagger that was still stood on the boarding ram of its assault ship. His next two beams hit the ship itself, burning right through the hull seemingly not causing any serious damaged.

Unexpectedly his Astray's warning lights started flashing indicating a possible threat from above and behind his mobile suit. David heavily swung the M1 about to see a few large aircraft above the island and they were dropping mobile suits.

'Paratroops? No way!' he yelled. He watched in disbelief as one of the parachuting Strike Daggers landed on a gun turret destroying it. Moments later a second Strike Dagger landed. 'It's not going to be that easy!'

David pushed his M1 to the limit as the machine jetting along just above the ground. He caught the first Strike Dagger by surprise and was able to blow its head off with a well place beam. David half saw a second beam burning through the headless Strike Dagger, this beam came from a fellow M1 Astray that'd been sent to push back the paratroops. The death of its comrade alerted the second Strike Dagger to the danger it faced. It brought its shield up as protecting and fired wildly towards David's M1, the shots missed but as they ploughed into the ground they through up a shower of dirt that obscured David's vision.

By the time the dust had cleared David could see that the M1 that had come to help him had been cut down by a beam through the torso. He swore loudly and charged ahead, he used his shield to block two of the Strike Dagger's counterattacking beams. The anti-beam coating on the shield held but David didn't think it would hold out much more punishment. As he neared the Strike Dagger he flung the M1 sideways to the right, as the Strike Dagger tried to follow the movement David burned two beams through its torso causing the Earth Alliance mobile suit to explode.

David paused for a brief rest. This fighting was vicious, a lot worse than he expected. The amount of firepower the Earth Alliance was ranging against Orb's indefatigable defenders was staggering. David knew what he had to do, the Earth Alliance could not have one inch of Orb territory he would fight them with every facet of his spirit.

David pushed his feet down on the M1's thrusters foot peddles sending the Astray into an assisted jump. He sped the Astray up as he made his way towards the harbour, where the greatest concentration of Strike Daggers were. He arrived just in time to see the Freedom disable a whole swath Strike Daggers before zooming off. 'That guy's amazing!' exclaimed David. 'But we can't rely on him. I have to fight as well!'

David roared as he charged down one of the surviving Strike Daggers. The enemy pilot swung his beam rifle around the fired. David brought up his shield but as the beam hit the anti-beam coating failed and it was broke in two. David swore but wasn't distracted from his goal; he decoupled what was left of his shield and threw it at the Strike Dagger. The broken shield hit with enough force to smash the Strike Dagger's head off, David finished the stricken mobile suit off with a beam to the cockpit.

Suddenly the mood of the battle changed as an enormous blue mobile suit landed not far from David's position. 'What a monster!' The huge cannons that were loomed over the blue mobile suits shoulders spew massive beams that obliterated three Astrays with ease. 'You bastard!' yelled David as he charged the mammoth mobile suit. David's vision was filled by the monstrous mobile suit and he could see the ends of the cannons glowing.

At the same moment that the blue mobile suit fired its cannons a beam rifle shot from the Strike Gundam cross in front of it, causing the pilot to falter slightly. Due to this David's M1 wasn't hit dead on. The Astray's left arm was vaporised and the whole suit was battered to the ground; the force of the impact caused David to black out.

When David regained consciousness the M1's cockpit was dark, all the mobile suits systems had died. He tried to undo the restraints that held him in the seat but the pain in his whole body was too much. Suddenly the hatch was forced open and someone appeared shining a torch into the cockpit. 'You okay in there?' It was a quite a cute and reassuring female voice.

All David could do was groan in pain and vaguely wave his right arm. He saw his female savour pull out of the cockpit and say 'Get a medic quickly; we've got a live on here!' She leant back into the cockpit. 'Don't worry we'll get you out in no time.' With that David let himself droop forward as relief spread throughout his body, at last is was over.

_End of the Tale_


	11. Tale Eleven

**Tale Eleven: Neil Hanson – ZGMF – 600 GuAIZ – The Second Battle of Jachin Due**

Neil Hanson let loose a whoop of excitement. ZAFT's ultimate weapon the G.E.N.I.S.I.S. had just obliterated the Earth Alliance's lunar base within the Ptloemaeus crater not only that but it had also devastated the Earth Alliance Fleet's reinforcements. The sights of so many naturals being put down in one go made Neil giddy with delight. The barbaric naturals were quite clearly inferior to the coordinators in every possible way; thusly Neil believed that killing them all would be the only way to protect PLANT and all those he held dear there. After the atrocities of JOSH-A, Boaz and the attempted nuclear attack on PLANT, the naturals deserved no mercy.

Neil wanted to take advantage of the confusion that was gripping the Earth Alliance Fleet. Unfortunately his unit, the Heath Team, was far from operating at full strength. Platoons 1 and 2, along with Commander Heath, had been wiped out when they tried to stop the Earth Alliance's nuclear attack on PLANT. This left Neil as the Heath Team's highest ranking pilot and now its acting commander. At his disposal were the leftovers of Platoons 3 and 4, excluding his own GuAIZ all they had were five of the older GINNs. Luckily though two of the GINNs were equipped with the M69 Barrus heavy ion cannon, they packed more than enough firepower to wreak havoc on the Earth Alliance Fleet.

He scanned the vast array of Earth Alliance ships that were spread out before him, trying to spot a weakness in the formation he could exploit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Laurasia-class frigate erupt in a huge fireball. Then he spotted it, one section of the Earth Alliance fleet was been escorted by Moebius mobile armours and not the Strike Dagger mobile suits.

This was his chance to get on the inside. He toggled the unit communication channel. 'Listen up; we're going to punch through those Moebius'. Blinkhorn you cover Geake and Kidby, Packard and Hadley you're with me.' He waited a few moments for the five confirmations of the orders. Hearing them he pushed his feet down on the GuAIZ's foot pedals, the thrusters on the powerful mobile suit opened up to full and he jetted off towards the Earth Alliance fleet. The rest of the Team tried to keep up but the GuAIZ was considerably faster than the GINNs.

As he hurtled towards the Moebius' Neil dropped his crosshairs over the first on he spotted. It had the standard load out of a linear gun and four missiles; as soon as he came into range Neil fired with his MA-M21G beam rifle. The beam easily penetrated the mobile armour's paltry armour plating. Neil had lost count of the all the Moebius' he'd destroyed during the war; they were so pathetic it was hardly worth the effort. He fired a second Moebius, this time his beam shot through the right hand thruster assembly; causing the mobile armour to veer violently off course and collide with another Moebius. Neil let out a short chuckle when they both exploded.

When the rest of the Team arrived they proceeded to slaughter the remaining escorts before moving on to the big targets. Both the M69 Barrus heavy ion cannon carrying GINNs immediately shot down a grey escort ship each. Neil himself poured a trio of beam rifle shots into the hull of an escort ship, luckily he struck one of its munitions bunkers the resulting explosion enveloped the whole ship in a fireball.

Neil spotted Hadley's GINN sloppily approach one of the Earth Alliance's big, and in his opinion ugly, cruisers. The cruiser's defensive batteries all opened up at once and Hadley was struck by one of the beams and exploded. 'I'll mourn for you when this battle is over my friend.' Pushing his GuAIZ to its maximum speed Neil looped up over the bow of the cruiser, as he zoomed past the forward single barrel beam cannon he activated the shield mounted duel beam claw and destroyed the cannon. Charging in close to the cruiser's bridge Neil rammed the beam claw into it. Pulling back slightly he fired off a pair of beam shots into the wrecked bridge. Neil smiled as he saw secondary explosions start to ripple through the cruiser's hull.

The sight of Blinkhorn and Kidby's GINNs being shot down denoted the arrival of the Earth Alliance's Strike Dagger mobile suits into this area of the battlefield. Neil started to grin, as much as he liked playing with the Earth Alliance warships he was far more interested in putting his GuAIZ through its paces against the Strike Daggers. More Moebius mobile armours swarmed into the area behind the Strike Daggers. Far off to his left Neil saw Geake gun down another cruiser with his Barrus heavy ion cannon before being cut down by a pair of Strike Daggers using beam sabres.

Locking onto the first Strike Dagger Neil fired off one of his extensional arrestors. The arrestor decapitated the Strike Dagger, with that Neil gunned down its wingman with a pair of well placed beams. Turning back to the now headless Strike Dagger he used its blindness to close in and slash its torso with his beam claws. Suddenly the GuAIZ was rocked by an explosion Neil swung the machine around to see a Moebius mobile armour hurtling towards him. His damage report was telling him that his right hand side thruster binder had been destroyed.

The Moebius had reached the point where it was nearly impossible for Neil to avoid being hit. It was about this time that he realised that the natural pilot wasn't going to chicken out at the last moment, this was a suicide attack. The flimsy Earth Alliance mobile armour rammed into the GuAIZ with more force than Neil expected and almost immediately it exploded. The collision and resulting explosion shock the GuAIZ violently and Neil's vision was obscured for several seconds.

When his vision returned Neil discovered that his GuAIZ had lost both its left arm and leg. Most of the systems within the mobile suit were offline as well, only half his monitors were operational, he couldn't help but swear under his breath. A trio of Moebius' closed in on the stricken GuAIZ. Instinctively Neil aimed his beam rifle and fired. One beam lanced forth from the rifle's barrel but then nothing. He kept pressing the trigger but nothing was happening, his battery was dying. 'Not by those pieces of trash!' he screamed. 'I don't deserve to be killed by this trash!' All the Moebius' fired their linear guns into the near motionless GuAIZ. The lead Moebius also launched all four of its missiles into the ZAFT mobile suit which exploded like a supernova.

_End of the Tale_


	12. Tale Twelve

There are some things I'm often asked about this series of stories so I'm going to answer some of them:

Who piloted the Saberfish in the first Tale? That is James Keffer.

What happened to Wendy? Later in the war she is paralysed after her Saberfish is shot up. She recovers and is piloting mobile suits again by Operation Stardust. However she does not meet Keffer again until the Gryps War…

Who is the ace in the yellow and black Zaku? Well that's the "Storm Lord" Anthony Curran. He is co-star in my 0093 fic "Wayward Warriors" and will be having a leading part in the Zeta-Era fic "The Beast"

What happens to Berghahn and Company / What happens to Croft and Company? Well they all make it to Reykjavik base eventually, which is still in United Earth Sphere Alliance hands. They are also all present for the Romefeller Foundation Virgo attack on the base…perhaps I'll do a Tale on that someday.

Now on with the show!

**Tale Twelve: Ichiro Suzuhara – YFX-200 CGUE DEEP Arms Ichiro-type – Sometime after the Break The World Incident**

The _Petrie_ class land battleship _Bartholomew_ sailed about ten miles south of the island Santa Maria in the Azores. Flying from one of the many aerials that adorned the top of the _Bartholomew_ was a flag that featured a white GINN head set above crossed GINN swords upon a black background. This was by no means a ZAFT land battleship; it belonged to the Diving Kestrels mercenary group.

In the _Bartholomew's_ rather cramped mobile suit hanger the man who used the call sign "Kestrel One" was striding across the deck to his modified CGUE DEEP Arms. To many he was known by the nickname he acquired during the Junius War, Miracle Suzuhara, but to the crew of the _Bartholomew_ he was just The Boss. Ichiro didn't mind having so many names he preferred to let his piloting do the talking. Upon reaching the foot of his rather distinctive CGUE DEEP Arms he leapt onto the cradle that would carry him up to the cockpit. Since acquiring the DEEP Arms it had been modified many times. The old directed thermal energy cannons had been stripped out in favour of a railgun over on shoulder and a small missile pod on the other. Both ideas were taken the old assault shroud concept that Ichiro had once tested during the Junuis War. The DEEP Arms also sported an extensional arrestor taken from a damaged GuAIZ and a beam rifle to match. It was affectionately known as the CGUE Ichiro-type by crew of the _Bartholomew._

Ichiro clambered into the cockpit and quickly began the start up sequence. He noted that his other three pilots were doing the same with their mobile suits. None of them were as special or heavily modified as Ichiro's. However they had all had little tweaks that improved the performance or weapons load out of the machines. For example to the two GINN OCHER had their batteries upgraded and had acquired beam rifles; one an Orb Type-71 and the other an Alliance M703. The sole Alliance built machine, a Strike Dagger, had had much of its electronics overhauled and gained some custom built leg mounted missile pods.

Once the start up sequence was completed Ichiro toggled his communication unit onto the mobile suit team frequency. "Are you kids ready yet?" he asked to the team.

"Of course," replied the twins Max and Dax in their OCHERs simultaneously.

"I'm ready to add a little cash to my pile," declared Ethelred in the Strike Dagger. "The quicker we get this over with the quicker we get back to the bar."

"You should take this more seriously Ethelred," said Ichiro sternly. "The data we received on this Zamza-Zah suggests it's a real beast. Not to mention the Federation base has half a dozen Dagger-Ls as part of its defence force."

"Whatever you say Boss," replied Ethelred dismissively. "I'm not scared of some prototype junk those Atlantic Federation dogs can't even get working properly."

Ichiro was about to reply but he was interrupted by a message from the _Bartholomew's_ bridge. The roguish looking face of William Roberts filled one of his monitors.

"Boss the Atlantic Federation base is trying to contact us again," Roberts said in a rather debonair tone. "They don't like us lurking out here at all. If you don't act soon I think they'll try to force us. We are going to get a fight whichever way things go."

"I'd rather get the first punch in," commented Ichiro. "Prepare for a five round barrage with the fore and aft cannons. A nice even spread over the base should suffice. It'll rile them up and should draw out our target. Start firing as soon as we launch."

"Right you are Boss," answered Roberts with his trademark mischievous smile on his face. "Good hunting."

The heavy metal shutter protecting the hanger slowly rose on both of the exits. Ichiro eased his CGUE out of its cradle and onto the Guul that was waiting for him. Registering that the support craft was firmly attached to his mobile suit Ichiro eased the pair out of the hanger. He was soon followed by the rest of his team each with a Guul of there own. A few seconds later the _Bartholomew's_ two main guns started firing.

It did no take the four mobile suits long to reach the Atlantic Federation base. The damage caused by the _Bartholomew's _barrage was evident as soon as the base came into visual range. Ichiro could see that one of the shells had impacted close to one of the large Linear Tanks. The force of the explosion had been enough to toss the Linear Tank over causing it to crash down onto a barracks. Elsewhere the barrage had hit various aircraft hangers and a rather fierce fire was burning at what Ichiro assumed to be a fuelling depot. Unfortunatly it didn't appear that any of the defence garrison's mobile suits had been hit. A gatling cannon turret began to rise slowly out of a concealed position on the hill over looking the base. Ichiro did not allow it time to deploy fully; bring his Guul around he let rip with a round from his shoulder mounted railgun that easily tore through the turret's armour.

Soon other concealed turrets began relieving themselves and all of the Diving Kestrel mobile suits were engaging them. Dax used a well timed, and aimed, beam rifle shot to take out two at once while his twin brother was able to slice the barrels of another with his OCHER's sabre. Ethelred was less lucky and had his Guul shot out from underneath him by a Linear Tank. Unperturbed by this he leapt into action once he hit the ground and dispatched the offending Linear Tank by throwing a chunk of his downed Guul at it.

At the foot of the hill two rather large concealed entrances began to open and Ichiro was sure that their target was coming out. From the first entrance six Dagger-Ls appeared brandishing there beam carbines but a far more menacing sharp was lurking in the shadows of the other.

"Kestrel Three and Four keep the Dagger-Ls busy!" barked Ichiro over the radio, "Two you are with me after the prise."

Instantly obeying him orders Dax formed up with Ichiro while Ethelred and Max honed in on the Daggers. It was Ethelred that reached the Dagger-L's first; he charged down the first one with his beam sabre already ignited. The unsuspecting Atlantic Federation pilot had his life extinguished as the beam pierced the armour surrounding his cockpit. Max meanwhile loosed a volley from his Guul's rocked launchers but only succeed in blasting off an arm from one of the Daggers. It quickly became apparent that the Dagger-L pilots were incredibly inexperienced. They relied too heavily on their shields for protection which dramatically reduced their ability to manoeuvre. Thanks to this Ethelred was easily able to keep on step ahead of them despite being in an inferior mobile suit. The other failing of the Dagger-L pilots was to concentrate too much on the Strike Dagger and virtually ignore Max in his GINN OCHER. Max deftly blasted the head off one of the Dagger-Ls and then followed up downing another with a beam to the torso.

By now the Zamza-Zah had fully emerged from its hiding place. The intelligence pictures they had received of it did not do justice to the ugliness. Ichiro found it hard to describe what it looked like other than vaguely crab-like. Its destructive power, however, was not in doubt as it fired off two of its multi-phase energy cannons that Ichiro barely avoided. Stabilising his Guul he quickly fired off three rounds from his railgun; while all of them hit they were easily shrugged off by the Zamza-Zah's phase shift armour.

Out of the corner of his eye Ichiro could just about see that the _Bartholomew_ was engaged with a gunnery duel with a _Des Moines_ destroyer. The _Bartholomew's_ well training gunners were clearly winning the battle as the _Des Moines_ was already hit in several places. However he couldn't be distracted by that as the Zamza-Zah was firing again. Ichiro took careful aim with his beam rifle and fired. Much to his surprise the massive mobile armour was able to avoid the shot. Dax was luckier with his fire but he only succeeded in scaring the thick armour. The intelligence report had suggested that the Zamza-Zah was to be fitted with a positron reflector but it appeared that this early prototype lacked that feature. This was something Ichiro was eternally grateful for; he seriously doubted if his team would have been able to defeat it with that sort of defence.

He tried a few more rifle shots but failed to cause any serious damage. Swearing under his breath Ichiro holstered his beam rifle and drew out his laser sword instead. It was one of things he loved the most about the CGUE DEEP Arms. With Dax providing covering fire Ichiro pushed his CGUE and its Guul to the max as he charged in close with the mighty Zamza-Zah. A stray shot blasted the Guul away but Ichiro charged on. With one powerful slash he hacked away one of the Zamza-Zah's hyper-oscillation crushers. For a few seconds it felt like everything was frozen but it passed just as quickly as it came. Ichiro hammered the CGUE's controls sending the extensional arrestor, with beam blade activated, into the general area of the Zamza-Zah's cockpit. It very quickly became obvious that the pilots were dead as the mobile armour gave a lurch and began descending to Earth; to help it on its way Dax pumped a volley of missiles into it then added some ventilation holes with his beam rifle.

Back on the ground Ethelred and Max had finished off the last three Dagger-Ls easily enough. The pair of them was already scavenging for anything worth salvaging. "Kestrel One to _Bartholomew_," said Ichiro as his CGUE landed on the ground. "Target eliminated. Hack the base computer and see what you can get information wise. After thank uplink our victory to our contact and arrange for payment. We are gonna need some more Guuls. Oh and make sure you send the salvage boys out here, there has to be something worth taking from this dump."

_End of the Tale_


	13. Tale Thirteen

**Tale Thirteen: Ensign Arthur Raynor - MRC-F20 SUMO – Final Battle Against Gym Ghingnham Forces**

Ensign Arthur Raynor swore loudly as a beam smashed into his SUMO's I-field barrier. The Mahiroos of Gym Ghingnham's forces were hammering the Diana Counter battle line. The pathetic Earth Militia were more of a hindrance than a boon thanks to their antiquated mobile suits but Arthur did have to admit they were tenacious. Off to the right one of the rather comical Borjarnon mobile suits had its head and right arm sliced off of a Mahiroo. Arthur cursed and let rip with his beam gun. The Mahiroo succeeded in avoiding the killing blow but still had its left leg severed at the knee. He throttled his SUMO to full power and shoulder barged the damaged Mahiroo to the ground. In a swift motion his SUMO grabbed its heat fan from its storage rack and activated the blade. Arthur plunged the heat fan into the Mahiroo's cockpit, killing the pilot instantly, and with a rough jerking action slashed up through the silver mobile suit's torso.

"You dogs are going to have to try a lot harder than this if you want to beat Diana Counter!" he yelled at the top of his voice. This battle was invigorating him far more than any other had. There was something oddly satisfying about fighting Gym Ghingnham's forces. Perhaps it was because they were traitors or perhaps simply because his fighting spirit was being awoken fully. Arthur was revelling in the experience.

More beams bounced off the SUMO's I-field barrier and Arthur turned to see more Mahiroos approaching. He couldn't help but think that they were ugly machines. The orange, dome-like, head was off putting not to mention the large oval shield made it look imbalanced. "You think I'm going to allow some traitor like you threaten Queen Diana?"

Petty Officer Laran's WaDom, supporting the forward units, fired its powerful beam cannon. The beam tore through the atmosphere vaporising one of the oncoming Mahiroos. The remaining Mahiroos regrouped and returned fire. Instinctively Arthur activated the IF generator mounted on the SUMO's left arm. The shimmering rainbow coloured field intercepted the incoming beams however the resulting explosion was still strong enough to knock over a nearby Borjarnon. Arthur snapped off two shots with his beam gun but the Mahiroos avoided them. He attempted to give chase but the Mahiroos were still more manoeuvrable than the SUMO despite them suffering from problems with the air pressure. The Mahiroos flew close to the ground to avoid Arthur's counterattacks; so low that they were caught off guard when a pair of Borjarnons emerged from behind a hillock. The lead Mahiroo reacted quickly and adroitly pulled off a summersault kick that smashed the Borjarnon's mono-eyed head to pieces. Smoke billowed from the green mobile suit as it slowly fell backwards. The second Borjarnon was dispatched when a Mahiroo rammed its oval shaped shield through the torso.

The time it took for the Borjarnons to be destroyed allowed Arthur to catch up with the Mahiroos. Taking advantage of the Ghingnham mobile suits having their backs turned Arthur used his heat fan to slash a fatal wound upon one of them. The remaining Mahiroo, the martially inclined one, displayed impressive thruster control in bringing up its left leg up in a roundhouse kick. Arthur attempted to block the attack but was only partly successful and the attempt cost Arthur his IF generator. The force of the kick was still powerful enough to knock the silver and red SUMO to the ground. Arthur fully expected the Mahiroo to finish him off but it was driven away by Laran's WaDom firing off a barrage of missiles. While Arthur busied himself with getting vertical again the Mahiroo took an interest in Laran's WaDom. The massive forty meter tall mobile suits was at a distinct disadvantage when it came to close combat. The Mahiroo kept close to the ground to keep out of the WaDom's beam cannon's firing arc. The silver mobile suits fired its beam gun at point blank range at the WaDom. The yellow beam easily sliced through the WaDom's armour plating and blowing off one of its arms along with damaging the hip joints.

Bellowing a roar of pure rage Arthur charged down the Mahiroo with his heat fan activated. In a swift slashing motion Arthur hacked off the Mahiroos arm that mounted the beam gun and then proceeded to cut the Ghingnham mobile suit in half along its waist. A moment of peace fell upon the battlefield as the Mahiroo collapsed to the ground and began burning. Unfortunately the respite did not last long as an iAspite/i class cruiser came into view. The circular green warships fired its two beam cannons at the Diana Counter forces. The powerful beams fell short of their targets but the resulting explosion was enough to shake the Diana Counter mobile suits and uproot some of the surrounding trees.

"Laran withdraw!" barked Arthur, "You are too badly damaged. In the name of Queen Diana I will vanquish fiend!"

With that he kicked the SUMO's thrusters to full power and zoomed off towards the iAspite/i. The green warship was already vomiting Mahiroos onto the battlefield but Arthur did not care. As he closed with the warship he took careful aim and fired his beam gun several times. The first shot struck the bow windows just below the main launch catapult causing the whole section to blow out. The remaining shots hit the armoured ring that gave the iAspite/i it's distinctive shape. He was forced to change his attack angle as the newly launched Mahiroos came screaming towards him; firing a fearsome barrage from their beam guns. Arthur ducked under the barrage and swept around underneath the iAspite/i. Once in position he let rip with the SUMOs beam gun. Several shots went straight through the warships armour and into the internal mobile suit hanger. Then he directed his attention to the iAspite's/i engines. He kept firing and firing to the point where he thought the very barrel of the beam gun would melt. However he was successful. With its engines crippled the iAspite/i began to drift towards the ground with explosions and fires ripping through its body.

So wrapped up in his victory Arthur did not see the Mahiroo that sliced the hand that carried his beam gun right off the SUMO's arm. Arthur cursed and tried to bring his heat fan into play but another Mahiroo used its arm blade to hack off the arm carrying it. He could see that he was surrounded by at least four of the silver mobile suits. Never the less he smiled anyway as one of the Mahiroos rammed its arm blade into the SUMO's torso, leaving a large gash in the armour plating. The Mahiroos were too busy getting their pound of flesh from the Diana Counter mobile suit to notice that the iAspite/i was falling directly above them. Then, as one last explosion ripped through the green warship, it fell and, for Arthur Raynor, the world went black.

_End of the Tale_


	14. Tale Fourteen

**Tale Fourteen: Lieutenant Karl Curran - ZM-S06S Zoloat – The Zanscare Assault on Side 1**

Lieutenant Karl Curran tried hard to stop himself from laughing. Spread out in front of the space colonies of Side 1 was a motley collection of old mobile suits and even older warships. It was a rather pathetic and disorganised force but that was to be expected from the remnants of the Earth Federation Space Forces. Today was going to be another great victory for the mighty Zanscare Empire. The time had come to show the poor ignorant fools of Side 1 the true light of Queen Maria's love and help them overthrow the shackles of the archaic Earth Federation. Karl's black and yellow Zoloat stood expectantly on the catapult of the _Callisto_ class cruiser _Rienzi_ he was stationed on. He was ready to kill all those who failed to believe in Queen Maria even if he had to burn the entire Side to do so.

It was the enemy who opened fire first. The capital ships of their ragtag fleet opened up sending torrents of mega particles soaring through space. It was not a unified affair but moved rapidly along the Federation line as each ship suddenly realised that the fighting had begun. Off to the _Rienzi's_ port side the _Siciliano_ was unlucky enough to take a direct hit to its mobile suit hanger before it could activate its beam shield. The beam breached the reactors of all the mobile suits lined up in the hanger causing them all to explode violently. Before long all that was left of the _Siciliano_ was a rapidly disappearing blob on the _Rienzi's _radar screens. Along the Zanscare battle line a few other ships were hit but none fatally. There was a pregnant pause with the Federation barrage petering out as their main guns worked through their recharge cycle. The Zanscare reply was deadly efficient with every ship firing at once. From his vantage point Karl could see far more explosions among the Federation vessels than there had been against his side. Then the order to launch came and Karl couldn't have been happier.

Karl's distinctively coloured Zoloat raced down the _Rienzi's_ mobile suit catapult and out into space in no time at all. The other machines in his squadron fell into formation behind Karl's Zoloat. They knew that he wanted to lead the charge himself and none of them dared to get in his way. Karl was an officer that liked to lead from the front no matter how dangerous it might be. Karl's father was highly placed in the Gatie Party and could have secured his son any rank or position in BESPA. However all Karl wanted to do was pilot mobile suits. Therefore his father pulled enough strings to get him the rank of lieutenant and a squadron of mobile suits to command.

Then in an instant the mobile suit battle was joined. It was obvious to Karl that the Federation forces were completely outmatched. The most advanced machine in their line up, that his sensors could detect, were the antiquated Javelins. Karl readied his beam rifle. A single shot was all that was needed to put the first Federal mobile suit out of it's misery. The Federal dogs were hardly worth the effort of killing them. However it was a job that had to be done. A pair of blue Javelins attempted to hem Karl's Zoloat in unfortunately for them Karl's machine was far more manoeuvrable. He deftly span the Zoloat out of the feeble trap while letting rip with his torso mounted vulcan guns. The bullets from the multi-barrelled projectile weapon tore through the head of one of the Javelin's before it could raise it's beam shield. The remaining Javelin fired off it's two shot lancers but Karl battered them away with his beam shield as though they were nothing.

Karl decided that perhaps he could have a little fun with this Feddie. A few quick button presses on his control sticks activated the Zoloat's beam strings. All five of the wires zoomed out from their housing and ensnared the Javelin. Moments later thousands of volts of electricity was sent coursing through the Federation mobile suit disabling most of its systems. Karl laughed as the Javelin jerked wildly then went limp. Karl took his opportunity to give the Javelin's head a good hard kick. The head came away easily and was sent spinning off. Little did Karl realise that roughly ten minutes later the remains of the Javelin's head would smash into the crew compartment of a _Sinope_ patrol craft and kill everyone on board.

All around Karl the battle raged. The mighty Zanscare Forces were cutting a bloody swath through the Federation battle line. Naturally it was not without sacrifice. Here and there a careless pilot was caught off guard and duly killed. It was Karl's opinion that anyone stupid enough to be killed by this trash got exactly what they deserved. He finished off the Javelin with a swift kick to the cockpit. It crushed the flimsy armour and pilot alike.

"Oh please, you have to be kidding me," Karl exclaimed as he saw a trio of Heavyguns emerge from the conflagration and approach him. The Heavygun was a relic from a bygone age. For Karl it was proof of just how pathetic the Federation really was. He brought his beam rifle up and squeezed off one shot that tore through the solid shield that the lead Heavygun used to defend itself. Karl fired again and the shot went straight through the grey mobile suit's torso. The remaining two Heavygun's dropped their beam rifles in favour of sabres.

Karl liked a good duel as much as anyone so he stowed his rifle and switched to his beam sabre as well. The Federal machines kept at a respectful distance at first. Their pilots were not totally stupid. They tried to bracket the black and yellow Zoloat but it was not easy, Karl was an expert pilot. With sabre out for a heavy blow one of the Heavyguns rocketed in with all its force. Karl was just able to block the blow with his own sabre but the two machines remained locked. Not wishing to loose the advantage the Heavygun let rip with its head vulcans; the machine-guns tore chunks out of the Zoloat's armour and shattered the glass protecting the Zoloat's main camera. Karl swore loudly and, almost too late, noticed what the other Heavygun was doing. It was about to impale his Zoloat. For a moment or two Karl did genuinely panic but years of hard training kicked in to save himself. With a single movement he activated his beam shield and released the lock on it's shoulder mount. The whole shoulder pauldron extended outwards on an armature and as the beam shield flared into life it sliced straight through the waist of the Heavygun. The Federal suit's beam sabre blinked into lifelessness as the whole upper body drifted away from its legs. The remaining Heavygun was quite clearly shocked by the fate of its comrade and Karl took advantage of that shock to break the sabre lock. Barely a moment later he sliced two great chunks out of it's torso.

"Curran to _Rienzi_. Have suffered minor damage. I am returning for repairs," he declared over the radio. "Ensign Smith, continue the attack."

_End of the Tale_


	15. Tale Fifteen

**Tale Fifteen: Captain Robert Croft - OZ-06MS Leo – Operation Nova**

The United Earth Sphere Alliance Reykjavik base was a hive of activity. The Romefeller Foundation's Operation Nova was slowly eradicating all opposition on the Earth to the foundation. Robert Croft, captain of the guard at the Reykjavik base, had been expecting an attack for weeks. The Reykjavik base had survived the initial Specials take over attempt and then repulse several half-hearted OZ attacks by being remote and unimportant. Unfortunately it was now playing host to more than fifty mobile suits all survivors from Alliance bases around the world. This made it a ripe target for Romefeller.

Captain Croft's Leo had already been warmed up by the time he walked along the gantry to it's open cockpit. One of the perks of being the commander of the bases defences forces was that people went out of their way to keep you happy.

"Captain Croft. Long range radar has detected enemy aircraft circling at the edge of our airspace," reported Ernst Blagard in the command centre after Croft had settled in to the cockpit. "We have also received a report that a large number of mobile doll transport entered the atmosphere within the last ten minutes. Their target appears to be the Trieze Faction base in Luxembourg."

"So Romefeller plans to knock down the last two military bases that can oppose them on the same day," said Croft more to himself than anyone else. "Did you get that Sara?"

"Yes Sir, I heard. My unit is fuelled up and ready to go. Just give the word," replied Sara as her image appeared in a small window in the right hand corner of Croft's main monitor.

"We have to destroy as many of them in the air as possible," reiterated Croft, they had gone over the defence plan a thousand times but it wouldn't hurt to hammer it home one last time, "You have to destroy those carriers in the air before they deploy the dolls. I'm counting on you Sara!"

"Sir! Enemy aircraft have entered our airspace. Romefeller is attacking! We have detected six transport aircraft with escorting fighters," reported Ernst Blagard. "Air defence batteries are engaging them as we speak."

"You heard the man, Sara," barked Croft. "Fly hard and fast my friend. Don't forget I haven't given you permission to die yet. I expect you see you again when all this is over."

"I'll keep that in mind sir," replied Sara. "This is Lieutenant Cambridge to all Aries units. Engage the enemy transport planes! Don't let a single one get through!"

Croft watched as, from makeshift hangers all over the base, the Aries mobiles suits began taking off. He knew that their mission was near suicidal but the light grey aerial mobile suits were their best chances of reducing the odds stacked against Reykjavik.

"Mr Blagard, if you would be so kind please call out the garrison. Everyone knows their positions," asked Croft calmly. For his own part Croft started his Leo moving out of the hanger and into the brisk morning air. None of the Leos in Croft's guards unit were equipped with standard weapons. There was ample evidence from battles all around the world that the standard Leo rifles were useless against the defence fields of the Virgo mobile dolls. However it appeared that they had a weakness against laser weapons. Laser weapons were few and far between on the Earth because it was difficult to dissipate the heat they generated. Therefore the handful in the possession of the Reykjavik base were entrusted to Croft's elite guards unit.

"Lord Roughdiamond and Colonel Hapsburg wish you the best of luck in this battle, sir," replied a slightly embarrassed Blagard, "Lord Roughdiamond says that when you are victorious he'll arrange for you to be knighted."

"As if merely trying to survive wasn't motivation enough," commented Croft dryly. "Inform his Lordship that I am pleased with his confidence in us."

In the distance he could see the tracer fire and explosions light up the sky. Sara's Aries unit was attacking with incredibly ferocity. However he could also make out the electric blue bubbles of the Virgo's defence fields. It did not bode well that some of them had already been able to deploy.

"Err, sir, I think we've got a problem," stammered Blagard. "We've just picked up three objected descending right on top of us. I think they are Virgo orbital drop ships."

"What the hell! I thought all of those were meant for Luxembourg," snarled Croft. "Calculate their estimated landing point and reorganise the defence lines. This is not good at all!"

Croft quickly relocated his Leo but by the time he got their he could already see the black mobile dolls descending on parachutes. The three dropships could deposit a total of thirty dolls right on top of the base and it looked like all of them had been deployed.

"Croft to Squad 83. Those dolls should be in range of your doberguns. Shoot them down before they land," he barked the order but the dobergun equipped Leos soon turned their weapons upon the falling dolls. While the Virgo mobile dolls sported gundanium armour it wasn't thick enough to resist the powerful armour piercing rounds of the dobergun. The first volley felled two of the black titans but it was impossible to stop them all before they landed. As soon as the dolls touched down they started firing their deadly beam cannons. Their initial barrage obliterated all the surrounding UESAF units. Tanks, mobile missile launchers, Leos, were all torn apart like they were made of paper. More dobergun equipped Leos opened fire from the cover of some hastily constructed earthwork fortifications. Again more of the Virgos were gunned down but still they relentlessly marched on.

Croft, together with two guardsmen as wingmen, sped as quickly as his Leo would carry him to the landing site. He knew they had to try and contain the dolls in that area. If they were to breakout into the rest of the base it would only be a matter of time before it fell. Croft's Leo rose above a small hillock overlooking the landing site and all he saw was a scene of carnage. The twisted remnants of green Leos littered the battlefield. Croft could see that the dolls had activated their defence fields. Not even the powerful dobergun could penetrate that.

Swearing loudly he pressed his foot down on the thruster pedal and launched into a rocket assisted jump. The Leo landed in the landing area and started off at full speed to the nearest group of Virgos. Croft readied his laser rifle and as soon as he was in range he let rip. The tight blue laser beam easily cut through the Gundanium armour plating of the Virgo's back. Almost immediately three of the other Virgos stopped their forward advance to deal with the threat to their rear. He fired again but missed the main body of the dolls. Instead he hit one of the floating disks. Almost immediately the seemingly impenetrable defence field wavered and failed. The defenceless doll was then torn to pieces by well coordinated machinegun volleys.

"This is Croft to all units. Target the floating disks. They are generating the defence field. If you concentrate enough fire on them you should be able to overwhelm them." he ordered over the radio.

As the remaining Leos began targeting the planet defensers Croft carefully picked his targets. He knew that he only had a limited amount of time before his laser rifle would overheat. Therefore he moved to do as much damage to the Romefeller forces as possible. Well placed shots decapitated Virgos or burned off their beam cannons. Despite his best efforts though he couldn't save all the men under his command as the explosion of another Leo rocked his suit.

"Squad 44 break off an attack the left flank of their formation," Croft ordered as he dispatched another doll by sending a laser beam slicing through it's torso. "Engage the dolls with beam sabres, they have no defence against close combat weapons."

Almost immediately the appropriate troops started redeploying towards the flank. Off to the right Croft saw one of his guardsmen get riddled with holes from the fire of three mobile dolls. He moved to reinforce that flank but was caught in the crossfire. The right arm and left leg of his Leo were blown away causing his machine to come crashing to the ground. His main monitor shattered sending a shower of glass shards into the cockpit. As he hit his head heavily against his cockpit seat the world slowly went dark.

Captain Croft only came too again once the seal had been cracked on his cockpit and light flooded back in. The bright light was almost blinding as he dragged himself clear and flopped onto the still warm titanium alloy armour plating.

"Gee, captain, you look like you've been through hell," said Sara Cambridge rather cheerfully.

"Are we dead?" Croft managed after a few moments of rest.

"No such luck," replied Sara. "We are still alive. I think we won."

"You think?"

"Well the enemy withdrew about ten minutes after you were shot down," she said. "So I guess technically we did win."

"They withdrew? It couldn't possibly because of our defence," said Croft as he sat up and surveyed the battlefield. There were a lot more destroyed Leos out there than Virgos. "I guess Luxembourg put up a better fight then they expected and they had to redeploy our attackers. What is Lord Roughdiamond's assessment of the situation?"

"I am sorry to say that Lord Roughdiamond and Colonel Hapsburg were killed during the battle, sir," said Sara solemnly. "The dolls hit the command centres as they began their retreat."

"Then who is in charge?" asked Croft.

"Well, sir, as of right now you are the highest surviving ranked officer in the United Earth Sphere Alliance Forces, making you our commander-in-chief. And under the wartime emergency government contingency plans that also makes you chief representative of the United Earth Sphere Alliance." replied Sara. "Congratulations, sir, you are now ruler of the entire Alliance."

"You've got to be kidding me!"

_End of the Tale_


	16. Tale Sixteen

**Tale Sixteen: Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - GAT-02L2 Dagger L - Sometime after Operation Spear of Twilight**

The two Eurasian Federation _Drake_ class escort ships slowly rose up from the Lunar surface. Behind them the grey body of the _Nelson_ class cruiser _Allenby_ followed closely. In it's small hanger Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha finished the final checks on her Dagger L. The last few weeks had raced past so quickly she could scarcely believe that the world was at war once again. None of the other members of her mobile suit squad had served in the last war. They were all teenagers fresh from the academy with no experience at all. Sofia was only three years older than her subordinates but in terms of military experience she was ancient. She had started the last war as a fighter pilot and ended up as a ace mobile suit pilot. Her Dagger L even had a red and green custom colour scheme to prove it.

"Captain, what is all the hubbub about?" she asked after keying in the communication link to the _Allenby's _bridge.

"We've picked up a ___Laurasia_ class frigate probing our defence lines," reported Captain Hohenzollern. "Our _masters_ at Arzachel have ordered us to destroy them."

Sofia swore in the safety of her own head. She detested the Atlantic Federation. Her fiancé had been part of the Eurasian Federation contingent defending JOSH-A during the last war. He did not make it out alive. It sickened her that the Atlantic Federation was able to so easily push the Eurasian Federation around. Unfortunately her nation had suffered greatly from the 'Break the World' incident and its position in the Earth Alliance was weakened; so they were forced to accept the Atlantic Federation's diktats. It did not help that they were deliberately holding back Eurasia's military development by refusing to share their latest mobile suit, the Windam. Yet still they insisted that the Eurasian military take front-line duties despite the increasingly level of new mobile suits in the ranks of ZAFT.

"Affirmative, sir, we shall engage the enemy closely," Sofia replied rather woodenly. She didn't have any issues with the coordinators, she had met a few of them and they seemed an alright bunch of people. However it was still her duty to defend her nation against all aggressors. ZAFT's cover story explaining the 'Break the World' incident was paper thin it was so obvious that they were responsible. Furthermore their rapid deployment of advanced new mobile suits suggested that they had been planning this for a while.

Before long the Eurasian Federation mobile suits had launched and were speeding through space toward the ZAFT ship. Soon the green frigate was disgorging its horde of mobile suits. Sofia checked her read outs on the enemy mobile suits and breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that none of them were new models. ZAFT's GuAIZ R was still an impressive machine but at least her Dagger L had a chance against it.

Off to Sofia's right one of her wingmen tried an experimental shot with the recoilless cannons on his Doppelhorn striker pack. She knew that he would never hit anything. They were still too far away from the GuAIZ Rs and he was hopeless shot anyway. She had tried her best to train her young subordinates but it seemed like they lacked the nous to become truly excellent pilots. Sofia didn't like the striker packs available for the Dagger L anyway; she thought they were far too bulky and didn't improve performance at all.

It was the GuAIZ Rs that opened fire next. Their big beam rifles had a much greater effective range than the small M703K carbines the Dagger Ls used. Sofia slightly adjusted her course to avoid being hit. Her subordinates meanwhile were engaging in far more elaborate avoidance manoeuvres and just as she expected one of them was caught by a stray beam. The unlucky Dagger L was torn to pieces as it exploded. Sofia made a mental note to chastise them for their sloppy manoeuvring once the mission was over, assuming any of her subordinates survived. She kicked her Dagger L into full thrust and zoomed off ahead of the rest of the Eurasian mobile suits. She dropped her crosshairs onto one of the green GuAIZ Rs. As she pressed the trigger her beam carbine spat green fire at the ZAFT suit. The first beam sheered off the GuAIZ R's right arm while the second pierced the armour plating around the cockpit.

The principle military advantage that ZAFT had had over the forces of Earth during the last war was the mobile suit. Now that Earth had developed mobile suit operating systems that allowed natural pilots to compete evenly with the coordinators the balance was shifted. While ZAFT still had the technological advantage the forces of Earth could make up for that with numbers. Sofia smiled to herself as she positioned her shield to deflect an incoming beam. The shield had a light anti-beam coating applied to it. Coating was only good for a few glancing hits but it was a nice reassurance to have. Off to her right one of the GuAIZ Rs fired its Pollux IX railguns. One of the slugs struck the left shoulder of her machine but mercifully failed to significantly damage the workings. However the rail slug from the other barrel tore through the bulky Doppelhorn striker pack of one of the Dagger Ls. Naturally the striker pack exploded in massive fireball that consumed the Dagger L as well. In reply Sofia took a "Stiletto" rocket-propelled anti-armour penetrator from its hip mounted rack. With a deft flick of the Dagger L's wrist she sent the arrow head-like projectile flying towards the offending GuAIZ R. The Stilletto caught the ZAFT mobile suit in the head which was promptly blown off. One of Sofia's subordinates did the honours in finishing off the GuAIZ R with two rounds from the recoilless cannons on their Doppelhorn striker pack.

Sofia noted with only mild interest that far behind the mobile suits one of the iDrake/i escorts ships was burning fiercely and slowly dropping towards the Lunar surface. The small grey ship had seemingly fallen victim to the _Laurasia_ class frigate's 450mm railguns. The remaining _Drake_ fired off a volley of missiles at the ZAFT vessel while the _Allenby_ bore down upon it with all guns blazing. Sofia smiled to herself; it was obvious that Captain Hohenzollern was enjoying himself far too much. Too late she realised that she had allowed herself to loose track of the battle. A beam narrowly missed her cockpit and caught her M703K beam carbine. The carbine exploded with enough force to shred the right forearm of her Dagger L. Jettisoning her shield Sofia toggled the the controls to bring her beam sabre to bare. Jamming her foot down on the thruster pedal she sent her machine charging off after the originator of the beam that nearly killed her. Almost immediately she could tell that the pilot of the GuAIZ R was rather inexperienced. They were trying to back away while firing their CWIS and railguns. Sofia was able to easily avoid the inaccurate projectile fire and close in for the kill. In one swift swipe she sliced the green ZAFT mobile suit in half at about cockpit height. The two pieces drifted apart slightly before exploding.

In the distance Sofia could see that the enemy frigate had fired off retreat flares. The remaining GuAIZ Rs tried to disengage from combat. However the Eurasian pilots were far too caught up in the thrill of battle to stop. They hounded the fleeing coordinators all the way back to their ship. Coordinated gun fire from the _Allenby_ and the Dagger Ls sent the light green ZAFT frigate crashing down to the Lunar surface in flames. In the grand scheme of things it was just a small victory but to those involved it was the greatest ever.

_End of the Tale_


	17. Tale Seventeen

**Tale Seventeen: Eric Sauer - DT-6800HM Daughtress High Mobility - The Unification of Africa**

The burst of 90mm machinegun bullets from the red and blue Fire Wallaby tore through the Jenice's titanium alloy armour surrounding it's cockpit. The green former Space Revolutionary Army mobile suit sank to the ground and fire into flames. Much to Eric Sauer's surprise the two remaining Vulture mobile suits were slowly retreating from the battle. From his experience Vultures always retrieved any fallen mobile suits even if it couldn't be repaired the parts were too valuable to allow them to fall into the hands of an enemy. Ultimately Eric didn't really care as long the Vultures didn't return. His town was fairly small and innocuous just a gathering of people who all desired to live in peace. He couldn't see how a Vulture would possibly benefit from raiding the town. Vulture attacks in the past had galvanised the population into jointly purchasing the Daughtress Fire Wallaby that Eric now piloted. When he wasn't piloting the old mobile suit he was a mechanic at the town's small mining complex.

"Nice work Eric," crackled through through his cockpit's radio, "We are getting good at this,"

"I'd rather not have to do this at all Rosa," replied Eric as he brought the Fire Wallaby to rest. "Any more movement out there?"

"I'm still getting the reports from the outlying observation posts but it looks like they've cleared out," reported Rosa the de facto controller of the town's military operations. She directed the operations from a small instillation perched atop a cliff overlooking the town. "Hey Eric, when you've stood down lets go t..."

"Go where Rosa?" asked Eric. The girl was so scatter brained she'd forget her own head one day. "Come on girl, don't leave me hanging in suspense. Rosa?"

Sighing to himself he brought the Fire Wallaby around to get a good look at the command centre. To his surprise there was a column of smoke rising from the site.

"Rosa! Rosa! Answer me!" he yelled over the radio. "Command centre respond! Damnit" Moment later a series of explosions rocked the town sending smoke and fire racing through the wooden structures.

"What the hell is this? Is it the Vultures?" They were rhetorical questions because he was never going to get an answer. "No, this is far too well organised for Vultures."

Suddenly the threat indicators to his left started screaming. Without even thinking he threw the high mobility mobile suits into evasive manoeuvres. Seconds later a 500mm cannon round flew through the air where he had been. As soon as he recovered his sense he turned to face the new threat. On a low ridge in the distance he could see six mobile suits. His computer identified them as three Daughtress types and three Daughtree Weapon types.

"Vultures? No, not those colours...the Federation?" he said half to himself. Memories of fifteen years ago flooded back. He'd been just five years old when the Seventh Space War came to Earth. He had been living in one of those unfortunate areas where the Space Revolutionary Army landed on Earth. The Federation had brutally assaulted the invading rebels with little regard to the local inhabitants. The ghostly form of Daughtress mobile suits surrounded by flames still haunted his nightmares. "Not again you bastards, not again!"

He threw all the power he could into his Fire Wallaby's hover system and sped off towards the enemy. The Earth Federation mobile suits had an advantage in the fire-power of their Daughtress Weapons. However all that firepower was useless if they couldn't hit their target. He could see the three regular Daughtresses fanning out to try and coral the Fire Wallaby into the sights of the Weapons. Eric, however, was having none of that. He kept the chunky mobile suit moving as best he could and constantly avoiding the incoming fire. Long ago the Fire Wallaby had had a flamethrower powered off the suit's reactor. Unfortunately it had been removed from Eric's Fire Wallaby so he was left with just a 90mm machinegun and his beam sabre.

The Fire Wallaby closed with blistering speed upon the nearest Feddie Daughtress. The pale grey mobile suit sprayed wildly with its 90mm machinegun but came not where near hitting Eric's suit. Eric meanwhile was far more accurate. He had spent hours training to shoot his machinegun at top speed. His well timed burst caught the Daughtress in the head completely destroying the camera system. A second volley caught the Federal machine on the right side of it's chest causing the metal giant to crash to the ground.

The three Daughtress Weapons began backing off slowly while the other two Daughtresses closed in. These two coordinated their fire better to hem Eric in. They succeeded in channelling him in towards them. He really wasn't in the mood to play games with the Federal machines. He let rip a rather length burst of machinegun fire that blew off the left leg of one of the Daughtresses. Unfortunately at the same time it emptied his magazine. As he began the process of reloading the other Daughtress sprayed bullets all other the place. Eric tried to avoid them but to his absolute horror a ricochet hit and destroyed the Fire Wallaby's right arm. The small explosion sent his 90mm machinegun flying off into the dust clouds created by his own hover engines. Swearing loudly and repeatedly Eric activated his beam sabre and changed down the remaining Daughtress. Screaming bloody murder he sliced the Federal mobile suit in half around the waist. The suit's armour plating barely resisted and the blade cut through.

Eric was panting from the exertion of the fight. He felt tired, oh so very tired but he knew he had to keep going. There might yet still be survivors in the town and he couldn't let those three Daughtress Weapons escape. His computer showed them making pretty good time considering their reduced speed. However they would never be able to out run his Fire Wallaby. He powered down the beam sabre to conserve its battery life and set off after his prey. What Eric didn't realise was that he wasn't the only hunter on the field of battle that day. He didn't even see the two brand new Valient mobile suits sweep down out of the clouds and pump six beam rifle shots into his Fire Wallaby from behind. The old Earth Federation never played fair and the new one wasn't going to either.

_End of the Tale_


	18. Tale Eighteen

**Tale Eighteen: Chief Petty Officer Gustav Velt - MS-06F2 Zaku 2 - Two Weeks Before Operation Odessa**

The three Zaku 2s lumbered across the plains of the North Eastern Ukraine. Despite being only a couple of months old the F2-type Zakus were well worn. Each machine had numerous scratches and the once immaculate green paint was flaking off in places. Chief Petty Officer Gustav Velt was immensely bored these long range patrols were very dull. Just because some idiot Luggun pilot claimed to have spotted the movement of Federal armour Gustav's squad had been sent to this isolated backwater. Gustav really hated missions like this. They almost always ended in nothing. Rumours had been knocking around for ages that the Federation was planning a new offensive.

"Ensign, my radar just picked up multiple incoming contacts," reported Warrant Officer Miller. The minovsky particle density was low enough for radio contact between the Zakus. "It could be the Feddie armour."

"Confirmed, Miller, I'm getting them as well," replied Ensign Araki. Araki was a young and energetic commander that rather annoyed Gustav. Many years Gustav's junior the young officer looked down disdainfully on the older pilot. Gustav had no idea why this was so. The general assumption was that the young man had a chip on his shoulder. "Okay boys lets clean up these pathetic Feddies."

The Zakus clambered over a small hillock and they discovered a whole company of Federation Type-61 main battle tanks. Gustav smiled broadly; he enjoyed battling Federal tanks. They were easy to destroy but he found it fun watching them squirm as their puny weapons proved ineffective against his armour. He aimed his MMP-78 120mm machinegun at the blue tanks and fired. Even when it was set to single fire the 120mm machinegun was enough to utterly destroy a Type-61 tank. The Zaku's towering height meant that they could easily hit the thinly armoured tops and backs of the tanks. Soon the plain was littered with burning tanks.

"And that makes fifty one!" yelled Gustav as he destroyed two of the little tanks in a row. "You see that Jackson! I told you I would do it before the end of the month!"

"Nice going Velt but you are no Silas Locke!" retorted Jackson as he dispatched another Type-61 tank.

"That's only because that dog has a Gouf!" snarled Gustav. "If I had a Gouf things would be different. I don't know why the hell they've stopped production already."

"Chief Petty Officer Velt shut the hell up!" roared Ensign Araki. "We are in the middle of a battle. Concentrate!"

"You call this a battle?" replied Gustav with indignation filling his voice. "This isn't a battle. This is practically a training mission. Heck I had more dangerous training than this on Lunar before the war." With great skill Gustav quickly turned his Zaku to the left and once again fired his machinegun. The 120mm shell sped through the air and caught the last remaining Type-61 tank as it attempted to retreat. "This joke of a battle is over."

"You think you are so great Velt just because you have an impressive kill score," snapped Araki. "But let me tell you that you are just a small minded little peon. I don't care how many kills you have or how long you've been in the service. You are a terrible soldier that only lusts after personal glory. Zeon doesn't need men like you protecting it."

"You want to come over here and say that, pretty boy!" yelled Gustav. In a flash of madness be brought his 120mm machinegun around and targeted the ensigns Zaku. "You should be careful out here in the wilderness pretty boy. You never know what might happen."

"Gustav, what the hell do you think you are doing!" shouted Jackson. He jammed his foot down on his Zaku's thruster peddle and shoulder barged Gustav's Zaku to the ground. "Are you insane? Do you want a courts martial?"

There was almost an ethereal pause as the three pilots waited to see what each other would do. Unfortunately the pause was broken by an outside source. A hail of unnervingly accurate heavy machinegun struck Jackson's Zaku from the left. The shells tore through the Zaku's super hard steel alloy armour as if it were paper. The left arm was ripped from its socket by the force of the attack. The head was smashed into thousands of pieces while the torso was riddled with more holes than Gustav thought possible. As the machinegun fire came to an end the Zaku swayed slightly before falling backwards. When the once mighty Zeon war machine hit the ground it crushed the remaining of several Type-61 tanks.

"Where the hell did that come from?" yelled Araki. There was an obvious trace of fear in his voice. He started to slowly back his Zaku away from where the attack came from. At the same time Gustav was desperately trying to get his Zaku back on its feet.

In the distance the two Zeon pilots could see a trio of figures moving into sight. They were clearly mobile suits but unlikely any they had seen before. The torso was red with the rest of the machine painted in a desert tan colour. The centre of the torso protruded out with vents on either side. The head was larger than that of a Zaku and did not have any obvious mono-eye camera. Carried in the right hard was what appeared to be some sort of machinegun and in the left was a large tower shield that was painted red.

"Those aren't Zeon mobile suits," breathed Gustav, "My god the rumours are true. The Federation has mobile suits!"

Araki opened first fire. A volley of 120mm shells hit the the lead Federal machine. However Araki's misses soon caused a cloud of dust to billow up hiding the enemy mobile suits from view. Gustav used this time to finally get his Zaku righted again and salvage the 120mm machinegun from Jackson's downed machine. Before long, however, the enemy mobile suits were moving through the dust cloud. As it cleared it became apparent the lead suit Araki had shot at was undamaged. This time both the Zakus targeted it and let ripe with all three of their machineguns. Gustav watched in amazement as he scored several direct hits. Each of the 120mm shells hit the desert tan coloured mobile suit with a discernible thud but other than causing it to pause in its advance momentarily there did not appear to be any damage. It tilted it's shield slightly to better cover its head but the hail of fire put up by the Principality soldiers did not perturb them in anyway.

The three RGM-79G land warfare type GMs levelled their 100mm machinegun at the Zaku with the command antenna. All too soon Araki's Zaku was a smouldering heap of scrap metal as the trio of GMs emptied their 100mm machinegun clips into it. Seeing that his situation was all but lost Gustav threw away both his machineguns. He throttled the Zaku up to full power and charged at the GMs while they were reloading. As he reached halfway he activated his thrusters to get that extra little boost of speed. It work just as he planned and he succeeded in shoulder barging one of the GMs to the ground. In a swift movement he brought his heat hawk into play. Bringing the hawk down in a long sweeping movement he hacked the machinegun of the leading GM in half. He could tell it was the command machine from the coloured bar on its shoulder armour. Turning the blade of the heat hawk he tried to slash up the GMs body but it backed away quickly. In a fluid motion a small hatch on it thigh opened and a small cylindrical object jutted out and was taken into the GMs hand. Gustav's mind was racing as he tried to work out what the object was. It looked far too small to be any kind of ranged weapon but it didn't appear to have any melee ability. He was taken totally by surprise when a pink beam appeared out of the cylinder. In one sweeping movement the pink blade cut through the Zaku's left arm sending both it and the heat hawk to the ground. The next move saw the GM plunging its beam sabre into the Zaku's cockpit.

_End of the Tale_


	19. Tale Nineteen

**Tale Nineteen: Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - GAT-02L2 Dagger L - Sometime after the Battle of Gulnahan Ravine**

Lieutenant "Saxy" Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was somewhat less than happy. Her day seemed to be going from bad to worst. It had started with a rather annoying escort mission to the Atlantic Federation Arzachel base. As if simply going there wasn't bad enough her departure was substantially delayed by the Atlantic cruiser _Churchill_ cutting in line. Now, hours later, Sofia's home base of Herschel was under attack. Six _Nazca _destroyers had approached the small Eurasian controlled Lunar crater from the direction of Arzachel. Yet another reason for Sofia to hate the Atlantic Federation they had allowed the ZAFT ships to approach Herschel unmolested. The entire garrison was being called out for the defence even the two large _Agamemnon_ battleships, _Franz Josef_ and _Frederick the Great_, were floating above the base.

From Sofia's position, flying just ahead of the _Allenby_, it looked like there was an angry mass of ZAFT mobile suits levelled against the Eurasian forces. Of course the Eurasian Federation garrison actually outnumbered the ZAFT attacks however the garrison was outfitted exclusively with Dagger Ls. Much to Sofia's annoyance her computer was registering that at least half of the enemy forces were new models. These '**Z**AFT **A**rmed **K**eeper of **U**nitys' that so many people were talking about. Sofia couldn't help but think that was a silly name for a mobile suit and the acronym was just as daft. In light of these opponents Sofia had finally been convinced to load her Dagger L up with a Striker Pack. The lack of any real ranged weapons on the Sword Pack had forced her into choosing the Launcher one instead. She thought the "Angi" hyper impulse cannon was far too bulky and cumbersome but the firepower it brought to bare was impressive.

A head of Sofia and the _Allenby_ a screen of ten _Drake_ class escort ships had formed up. They lacked any real staying power against the _Nazca_ destroyers since they didn't have any beam cannons. However the impressive missile and torpedo batteries they possessed gave them considerable barraging power. As if to prove the point all ten of the _Drakes_ opened fire with all their missiles and torpedos. Sofia watched as they streaked out through space towards the ZAFT forces. She doubted they'd do much damage. ZAFT had good pilots more than capable of dealing with missiles. The main point of the attack was to break up their formation and shake their confidence. As the _Drakes_ drifted back into formation with the _Nelson_ cruisers the scores of Eurasian mobile suits charged towards the attacking ZAFT machines.

As the two forces closed to within firing range they set upon each other with a murderous rage. All along the battle line explosions flared as mobile suits died. Anyone studying the conflict could clearly note that there were by far more explosions in the Eurasian ranks. Sofia brought about her "Angi" hyper impulse cannon. Silently she cursed its weight and then carefully targeted the weapon. She pressed the trigger and watched the multi-coloured beam tear through space. It struck the GuAIZ R she had aimed at just off centre. The beam ripped the torso in half sending scraps of debris flying off in all directions. Off to Sofia's right a Doppelhorn equipped Dagger L was gunned down by beam rifle fire. She twisted her Dagger and let rip with the 120mm anti-ship vulcan cannon mounted on the right shoulder of her machine. The heavy anti-ship shells easily penetrated the armour of the poor GuAIZ R that had felled her comrade. Almost immediately Sofia was forced to falter and bring her small shoulder shield into play. A pair of GuAIZ Rs swept down upon her. She tried her best to block what attacks she could but regrettably a stray beam struck the left leg of her machine and severed it at the knee. Swearing loudly, and in no less than three languages, Sofia desperately attempted to rebalance her Dagger L. Swinging the "Angi" around wildly she accidentally fired it. The beam blasted off the legs of one of the GuAIZ Rs. To aide her a pair of Dagger Ls swept down and finished off the GuAIZ Rs with well placed beam carbine fire.

As she caught a brief respite she watched as one of the _Nazcas_ was utterly destroyed by the heavy guns on the _Franz Josef_. Regrettably the Eurasian ships were taking a battering as well. Three of the little _Drakes_ had been destroyed and even the _Allenby_ had been hit but she was battling on. It was at that time that Sofia noticed something odd. Far above the Lunar surface and far above the battle she spotted what looked that thruster trails. If the enemy attacked from above they would have a virtually clear run at the entire fleet. Despite the damage to her machine Sofia directed her Dagger L to investigate.

It did not take very long at all for her computer to pick up the six enemy targets above her. It registered that all six were ZAKUs. Three of them had the striker packs that intelligence called Blaze and three had Gunner packs. The Gunner ZAKUs had more than enough firepower to decimate the fleet and there was little Sofia could do the warn them. The N-Jammers were in full flow so she couldn't get a radio message out. She had no option other than to fight. So that was what she did. Quickly aiming the "Agni" hyper impulse cannon she squeezed off a shot that caught one of the Gunner ZAKUs completely unaware. Apparently the ZAFT mobile suits had failed to spot her Dagger L. Unfortunately the destruction of their comrade alerted them to her presence. The three Blaze ZAKUs swarmed into towards her. All three of them fired off a fearsome barrage of missiles from their Blaze packs. The barrage caused Sofia to back off as quickly as she could. Her 120mm anti-ship vulcan spewed fire and the vulcan shells ripped through the missile swarm destroying most of them. Unfortunately two of them got through. Swearing loudly Sofia detached her "Agni" cannon and threw the long green weapon at the incoming missiles. Fortunately for the European pilot the missiles struck the cannon rather than her Dagger L. She whipped out her M703K beam carbine and started her counterattack. She fired off three shots in quick succession that all hit the lead ZAKU but were blocked by its shield. Sofia couldn't help but notice that the shield was barely scratched.

The two remaining Gunner ZAKUs did not even bother to hang around to see what would happen to Sofia. They charged off after the fleet and to Sofia's horror they both planted beams through the hull of the cruiser _Alsace_. At the same time it appeared that the Blaze ZAKUs did not fear Sofia at all as the lead suit took great pleasure it blasting off her Dagger's right arm. Sofia could hear her heart pounding louder than it had ever done before. She knew she was certainly going to die. There was nothing she could do to prevent it. She was entirely at the mercy of the ZAFT pilot. She only hoped they make it quick. And then something quite unusual happened. As if out of no where a hail of heavy missiles appeared. The ZAFT mobile suits were caught entirely by surprise. They might have been the latest technological marvel to come out of PLANT but there was little they could do against missiles designed to penetrate warship armour. All five of the ZAKUs were struck down with ease. Then to Sofia's surprise the allied ship deactivated it's mirage colloid cloak and revealed itself to be the _Girty Lue_. The mighty blue warship charged on towards the ZAFT vessels and fired all six of its massive Gottfried cannons. Three of the _Nazcas_ were felled in a single volley. With help from the remaining Eurasian ships the last two were finished off with ease and suddenly all the ZAFT mobile suits were feeling from the scene. All Sofia could do was float aimlessly in her damaged Dagger L. It galled her to think that she'd been saved by an Atlantic ship and one controlled by the Blue Cosmos no less.

_End of the Tale_


	20. Tale Twenty

**Tale Twenty: Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - CAT1-S01H Hyperion Sabre - Shortly before the Battle of Crete**

The last few days had rushed past far too quickly for Sofia's liking. First a mysterious transport arrived at Herschel base and then she was unexpectedly transferred out of the 2nd Balkan Battalion. Now she was under the direct command of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett and his elite "_Obstinate Arrows"_ special combat unit. Made up of six hand picked pilots the Obstinate Arrows were the finest combat unit in the whole Eurasian Federation. The Obstinate Arrows had a long and distinguished history that dated back to before the Reconstruction Wars. Sofia would have been honoured to have merely been considered for membership. Actually being part of them was unbelievable. They had a rather snazzy all black version of the standard Eurasian uniform and piloted the newest mobile suits. The CAT1-S01H Hyperion Sabre had been under development on and off since the end of the last war. Based on the original Hyperion it had suffered various setbacks thanks to Rear Admiral Garcia's lacklustre handling of the project.

Sofia rather liked the name Hyperion Sabre. The Atlantic Federation chose Dagger for their mobile suits but to Sofia that conjured up images of back ally brawls between drunks. A sabre was a far more elegant weapon for more sophisticated people. The Hyperion Sabre shared pretty similar design to the original Hyperion although the newer model did have enlarged shoulders. The shoulders mounted the additional batteries required to power the two RFW-99K "Zastava Stigmate Type K" beam sub-machineguns. Sofia was annoyed that she hadn't had more time to experiment with the mono-phase lightwave shield emitters. Unfortunately almost as soon as she'd been assigned to the Obstinate Arrows they had all boarded the _Franz Josef_ and set sail without even an escort. It took more than a day for Melchett to reveal what the mission was.

Now they were just moments away from launching their mission. The objective was to probe the defences of ZAFT's Armoury One station. Apparently the Atlantic Federation had given orders for a recon mission. General Melechett had volunteered the Obstinate Arrows because he knew that no other unit in the Eurasian Federation would be able to achieve the objective.

"Okay. Andrzej, Francisca, Miko, and the newbie Sofia will join me in a frontal attack," said Louis Gautier the Obstinate Arrows' mobile suit team leader. "Zachepa you will use the commotion to do a fly by of their external facilities get as much data as you can then high tail it out of there."

There was five confirmation replies although Sofia's was rather sullen. She did not like being called a newbie. She'd fought in more battles than anyone in this unit. Perhaps not of the same intensity recently but she'd been through some of the toughest battles of the previous war. She tried to put such thoughts to the back of her mind as the hanger doors began to open. Louis' Hyperion Sabre was the first onto the linear catapult and before the long the whole team had been shot out into space. The _Franz Josef_ was hiding behind an asteroid; Sofia noted that they were probably not going to be getting any support from the _Agamemnon_ class battleship's main guns. Sporting a quite simple grey and white colour scheme the Hyperion Sabres lacked any sort of identification marking other than a black A followed by a Roman numeral on the left shoulder.

The six Hyperion Sabres flew in close formation before machine V, piloted by Zachepa, broke off to perform his mission. As the five remaining machines crossed the outer periphery of ZAFT's defence sphere Louis activated his "Forfanterie" beam cannons. The two lengthy cannons locked down over the shoulders of his Hyperion Sabre. He carefully targeted a _Nazca _destroyer so far away Sofia thought it impossible to hit. However she was proved wrong when the powerful beams burst forth from the cannons and struck the _Nazca's_ engine block. It still took several minutes for the Eurasian mobile suits to reach the principle ZAFT defence lines. There were reams and reams of mobile suits zooming around Sofia hadn't seen that many since the Second Battle of Jachin Due. She did not, however, allow that to phase herself.

The ZAFT mobile suits tried to heard the Hyperion Sabres into a kill zone but the plan quickly fell to pieces. For starters the Eurasians refused to play ball. Louis bagged himself a pair of GuAIZ Rs with a quick burst from his Zastava Stigmate Type K beam sub-machinegun. Sofia, not wanting to be left out, dropped her crosshairs upon one of the newer ZAKU-type mobile suits. She pressed the trigger and a stream of little beams burst forth from the Zastava Stigmate in her mobile suit's right hand. It was quite unlike any beam weapon she'd used before. The old Strike Dagger's M703 beam rifle had a very definite kick to it that you could still feel through all the bracing. With the Zastava Stigmate however she couldn't feel anything. While each individual beam bolt was weaker than even the M703K beam carbine's shots there were enough to them to easily chew through the ZAKU's armour. It quickly exploded in quite spectacular fashion which made Sofia appreciate the Hyperion Sabre even more.

Feeling rather adventurous the Obstinate Arrows broke out of formation and each raced off through the ZAFT lines. The Hyperion Sabres were fairly quick machines and the large numbers of ZAFT mobile suits made the job rather easier. The ZAFT pilots had to be careful of where they were aiming. The Eurasians had no such limitation. Sofia was enjoying herself considerably. Both her Zastava Stigmate's spat fire at the myriad of ZAFT mobile suits. One burst decapitated a rather unfortunate GINN while another blew off the left leg of a passing ZAKU. It didn't bother her if not all of her shots were kills. That wasn't the mission profile. They were there to cause a ruckus and they were certainly doing that. As if to prove the point Andrzej's used his "Forfanterie" beam cannons to blast a swath through the ZAFT ranks and to fell a _Laurasia_ frigate at the same time.

Unfortunately for Sofia it appeared that ZAFT did not want her to have everything her own way. Through the broiling melee a multi-coloured high energy beam came racing towards her. The beam was quite clearly well aimed and it was only Sofia's lighting reflexes coupled with her Hyperion Sabre's superb response time that save her. Of course the "Armure Lumiere" mono-phase lightwave shield mounted on the Hyperion Sabre's forearms did help a little. The Hyperion Saber just kept impressing Sofia more and more. She knew that the "Armure Lumiere" technology had been around for some time but this application was simple astounding. No mobile suit of the previous or current generations could have survived a direct hit from a high energy beam cannon. Recovering from her amazement Sofia decided to track down the perpetrator. She knew it was one of the ZAKU mobile suits and there were not that many sporting the long-range cannon backpack. She spotted a likely candidate through the crowd though she had noway of telling if it was the same ZAKU. Holstering one of her Zastava Stigmates she drew a beam sabre and went in for the kill. The ZAKU spotted her approach far to late. It tried to get off a shot but missed by miles. In a rather swift movement Sofia sliced the cannon in half and then thrust her sabre into the ZAKU's cockpit.

As she deactivated the blade and shoved the lifeless ZAKU away the multi-colour flares signalling a withdrawal were splashed across space. The Obstinate Arrows disengaged themselves with little trouble from the confused and disorganised ZAFT battle lines. Between then the Arrows had destroyed eleven enemy mobile suits and damaged a further two dozen. In return the only damage they had suffered was Francisca having her suit's left arm severed at the elbow. The "Armure Lumiere" mono-phase lightwave shield really was a life saver. Without it the mission would have been a total failure. Sofia had fallen in love with the Hyperion Sabre. As far as she was concerned it was finest mobile suit she'd ever piloted. She had a feeling she'd do great times with her new sabre.

_End of the Tale_


	21. Tale Twenty One

**Tale Twenty One: Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - CAT1-S01H Hyperion Sabre - The Battle of Herschel Crater**

The armoured blast doors to the Herschel Crater base's command centre opened with the ease of well oiled machinery. Lieutenant Sofia Saxe-Coburg-Gotha brazenly marched through flanked by two guards. She looked resplendent in her black Obstinate Arrows uniform. Sofia had raced back to the base from the Franz Josef with some very important news.

"Can I have everyone's attention please!" she bellowed at the assembled officer in the command centre. "A little over two hours ago General Melchett received word that an Atlantic Federation forces has been dispatched to seize control of this base and detain all the personnel here."

"Is this some kind of joke? What is the meaning of this!" demanded Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufman, the 2nd Balkan Battalion's commanding officer.

"I assure you Lieutenant Colonel this is no joke. The General's intelligence sources inform him that the Atlantic Federation's 27th Unified Attack Battalion has been ordered in for the attack along with the 3rd Special Operations Gressorial Force. The enemy fleet is expected to consist of more than twenty ships," reported Sofia calmly.

"That is insane. There is no way our allies would attack us," protested Major Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov. "This must be misinformation, what the hell is Melchett up to?"

"This is no lie Major. What happened in Berlin was no accident. The Atlantic Federation has turned on us and they will attack this base in a matter of hours," snapped Sofia. "By the authority of the Obstinate Arrows and of General Melchett I am seizing command of this base and it's defences."

---

At exactly 09:46AM the Atlantic Federation fleet crossed the lip of Herschel Crater. Consisting of ten Drake class escort ships, eight Nelson class cruisers and three Agamemnon class battleships it was a pretty impressive sight. They were not expecting any resistance from the Eurasian forces in Herschel crater after all there was no way for the Eurasians to know what was going to happen.

"No reported movement within the base, sir," observed the sensor operator aboard the flagship Alexander.

"It looks like we won't be needing your services, Lieutenant Commander," commented Captain Harold Pinter. "Launch the 27th have them secure the facility for my arrival."

"Don't be too confident Captain Pinter," said Lieutenant Commander Stephan O'Riley from where he lurked at the rear of the Alexander's bridge. "I saw the 2nd Balkan Battalion fight at Jachin Due they are a tough bunch of fighters, you shouldn't under estimate them."

"That bunch of ingrate Eurasians? I think you give them too much credit Lieutenant Commander," sneered Pinter. "To prevail in the conflict against the coordinators we must prune the recalcitrant elements from our alliance."

"Whatever you say Captain," said Stephan dismissively as he moved to leave the bridge. "I'll be waiting in the hanger for when you need us."

In the corridor Stephan was pleased to see Joanne Davies waiting for him. He rather appreciated her company as all his other subordinates were near-mindless zealots with little vocal dexterity.

"Is something wrong, sir? You look troubled," Joanne asked as she fell into step with him.

"Pinter is an idiot. He isn't taking this mission seriously just because we are dealing with the Eurasian Federation," replied Stephan. The two pilots approached the elevator at the end of the corridor and with timing usually only found in celluloid the doors opened so that they did not even have to slow down.

"Well they shouldn't be much of a challenge after all the coordinators we've fought," said Jo.

"The 2nd Balkan Battalion has been fighting the coordinators just a long as we have. Hell they've fought this entire war using just Dagger-Ls," said Stephan. "There isn't a single Windam in Herschel base's arsenal yet they've been going up against Zakus and winning. They are way better than the 27th, probably better than us as well."

"Even so if they haven't reacted so far we've probably caught them by surprise," she said reassuringly. "You worry too much, sir,"

---

Shadows hid Sofia's Hyperion Sabre from the approaching Atlantic Federation mobile suits. She noted that it appeared to be a mixed formation of Windams and Dagger-Ls. That would be advantageous to the 2nd Balkan. If it had been all Windams she didn't think her old unit would last very long.

When General Melchett had first raised the issue of Herschel being attacked he hadn't been keen at all to intervene. It occurred to Sofia that the general did not want to reveal the fact that he had someone inside the Atlantic Federation passing him information. However Sofia had insisted that they do something. So eventually he allowed her to return to Herschel alone. That didn't bother her that much. She liked being part of the Obstinate Arrows but she still felt a loyalty to the 2nd Balkans. She couldn't stand by and watch them fall to the Atlantic Federation.

She checked her radar readings one last time before ordering, "Okay people lets go! Time to show these Atlantic dogs how to fight!"

Hammering her foot down on the Hyperion Sabre's thruster peddles the grey and white mobile suit emerged from the shadows. With a Zastava Stigmate beam sub-machinegun in each hand Sofia began spraying beam fire at the incoming mobile suits. Before they even knew what was happening a Windam was riddled with beams and exploded. A Dagger-L just behind the Windam was rocked by the explosion and Sofia took the opportunity to destroy it's head and left arm with a stream of beam bullets.

All across the crater the 2nd Balkan's Dagger-Ls were opening fire. This was Sofia's defensive plan. She knew they couldn't win in a normal set piece engagement. However if they could draw the enemy mobile suits away from their capital ships they might have a chance. Therefore she had ordered the 2nd Balkan's mobile suits to conceal themselves in the cracks and crevices of the crater's floor.

As Sofia's Hyperion Sabre raced through the enemy formation she witness countless mobile suits getting hit. To her left a Windam was caught by coordinated M703K beam carbine fire. First it's left arm was blown off then a beam pierced the torso armour killing the pilot. It's wingman was able to counterattack and it's chunky dual recoilless cannon on it's Doppelhorn striker pack were able to easily burn down one of the 2nd Balkan's measly Dagger-Ls. However while the Windam's attention was focused on the surface of the crater Sofia was able to dash up behind it. A quick burst from her Zastava Stigmate into the Doppelhorn pack was enough to send the Windam crashing to the ground.

Her immediate progress was stopped by a pair of Dagger-Ls firing their carbines at her from directly above. Much to her annoyance she was forced to deploy her lightwave shields to block their attacks. In the moment of pause Sofia activated her "Forfanterie" beam cannons. The cannons folded over the Hyperion Sabre's shoulders. As she fired the two beams twisted together into a single powerful shot. The two Dagger-Ls, flying in close formation, were both caught and torn to pieces.

"Report!" Sofia barked down the communications channel to Herschel Base's command centre.

"The Atlantic mobile suits have suffered heavy casualties and are in retreat," reported Major Vlasov. "However their fleet remains in orbit and we are unable to escape."

"Casualties?" she asked.

"We have confirmed six destroyed and four more damaged from our forces," replied Major Vlasov. "The enemy have lost twelve machines with a further five damaged."

"They will regroup and attack again soon," Sofia said as she opened the visor on her helmet. "Pull back our damaged mobile suits to the warships. They can act like additional turrets if needs be. We have to wait for the right moment to try and breakout."

"Yes, Ma'am,"

It was strange Sofia really did despise the Atlantic Federation. Countless times she had had dreams about finally getting to fight them and get her revenge for the death of her fiance at JOSH-A. However now that it was really happening it did not feel right. It felt strangely abhorrent to be fighting and killing fellow Naturals.

---

In his Wing Dagger Zero's cockpit the console lights bathed Stephan O'Riley's navy and grey pilot suited form in an eerie glow. I knew something like this would happen, he thought. He wondered briefly if that Eurasian pilot Sofia was still with the 2nd Balkan Battalion. Ever since the battle of Berlin she had been weighing on his mind for some reason.

"'Guns of The Patriots', O'Riley, Wing Dagger launching!" he exclaimed.

---

Joanne Davies' Windam-SC launched shortly after O'Riley's Wing Zero. Her machine had probably the best performance of the normal 'Guns of The Patriots' mobile suits. The Wing Dagger was in a class of its own. Due to its long range weapons loadout if shared some of a sense systems employed by the old Buster mobile suit. The Windam-SC lacked some of the close range weapons of the standard model but that didn't bother her much. She did not intend to allow any enemies to get that close.

As if to prove the point she lined up a shot with her GAU-XS34 115mm sniper railgun. Gently squeezing the trigger she sent a metal projectile across the battlefield at incredible speed. The projectile hit it's target with pinpoint accuracy. The slug smashed through a Dagger-L just left of it's cockpit and with enough force to send it crashing into one of the outlying base buildings.

The 27th Unified Attack Battalion had regrouped but they only have seven mobile suits left capable of continuing. Joanne cursed under her breath. It wasn't in the 'Guns of the Patriots' remit to bring unruly allies to heel. They should have been dealing with ZAFT. It was a waste of time and resources to be fighting fellow Naturals.

Suddenly something caught her eye in the middle of the battlefield. It was a mobile suit that neither her combat computer or her own eyes recognised. It was bigger and bulkier than a Dagger-L with a completely different head and torso design. Not wanting to take any chances she aimed the sniper railgun and fired. To her great surprise the unknown mobile suit dodged the attack with a simple side slip.

---

Sofia did not take kindly to being shot at. Her combat computer informed her that the enemy mobile suit was a Windam-SC, designed as a sniper mobile suit. Sometimes she wonder just how General Melchett was able to get all his information. The Windam was certainly unnervingly accurate. Sofia had only just been able to avoid the first attack. With the Hyperion Sabre's thrusters burning at full throttle she ate up the distance between them. With scarcely 20 meters left between them the Windam-SC fired again. Sofia was forced to use her lightwave barrier shields to block the attack.

It was obvious to Sofia that the enemy pilot had been rather surprised by this because they left themselves open. Leaving one of her beam sub-machineguns on a hard point Sofia drew out a RBW Type 7004 "Romteknica 3" beam sabre and activated it. In one slice she hacked the Windam-SC's railgun in half and as it began to pull back decapitated the Atlantic Federation machine. Continuing her attack Sofia brought the sabre down into the Windam's torso.

---

In his Wing Dagger Stephan felt pretty much invincible. As good as the 2nd Balkan pilots were their machines were no match for his. A trio of Dagger-Ls rose up to attack him. Entirely on a whim he detached the "Mjolnir" spherical breaker from inside his shield and began to swing it up to speed. At just the right moment he released it and the ultra-dense ball smashed one of the Dagger-Ls to pieces. However he was surprised to see one of the Eurasian mobile suits slice the chain, that tethered the "Mjolnir" to the Wing Dagger, in half.

"Why you little bugger" exclaimed Stephan.

The same Dagger-L then sped in to attack the Wing Dagger itself but Stephan was able to block it's beam sabre with his shield. A slight tweaking of his controls meant that his MX9409S 57mm heavy beam rifle fired at point blank range into the little mobile suit's torso.

Suddenly a bleeping to his right informed Stephan that Joanne's Windam-SC was under attack. Ignoring the remaining Dagger-L he fired the Wing Dagger's thrusters and raced to her aid.

As they came into view he could see the two machines locked together. The enemy mobile suit had it's beam sabre buried in the Windam-SC's chest. Miraculously it had missed both the cockpit and reactor. However the enemy mobile suit looked oddly familiar.

"No way, the Hyperion? I thought it was destroyed!" Stephan said aloud to himself and then followed up with. "Joanne! Look out!"

At the flick of a switch the pair of 125mm high-energy beam cannons locked into position over the Wing Dagger's shoulders. Stephan couldn't aim directly at the enemy mobile suit for fear of hitting Joanne but hopefully he could scare off the Hyperion-wannabe.

---

Sofia swore loudly and at length when the new enemy showed up. It's over the shoulder cannons were even more powerful than her own. When they fired she was forced to leave the crippled Windam-SC. She was pretty sure that even a glancing blow from them would be fatal. She cursed again when it became apparent that her combat computer lacked any knowledge on this new mobile suit. It had the vague appearance of a Daggerified version of the infamous Freedom mobile suit from the last war.

She had a feeling this was going to be quite the challenge. She took both her Zastava Stigmate beam sub-machineguns from their hardpoints and readied them. Pressing down forcefully on her thruster pedals she encouraged the engines to 105 output. The two Zastava Stigmate's spat fire at the Freedom-wannabe but it proved an elusive opponent as it dodged them easily. It returned fire with it's bulky beam rifle but Sofia was able to avoid the shots.

At the same time both pilots decided to use their over the shoulder cannons. When they fired all four of the beams converged on a single point of space roughly halfway between the two suits. As the beams hit each other they exploded with enough ferocity to knock back both the Hyperion Sabre and the Freedom-wannabe.

Unfortunately for Sofia the Freedom-wannabe recovered first and emerged through the explosion firing off a barrage of missiles from it's shoulder mounted launchers. Struggling with her controls Sofia just barely activated the Hyperion Sabre's lightwave barrier shields in time. However the enemy used it's superior speed to flank the Hyperion Sabre and fire off a volley from it's heavy beam rifle. Sofia couldn't avoid the green beam shots in time and first one struck the Eurasian mobile suits on the right shoulder completely destroying the entire assembly and causing the whole arm to fall away.

Sofia screamed as the console on her right exploded showering the cockpit with shards of glass and plastic. She could feel a sharp stabbing pain in her right arm and could only assume that something had pierced her pilot's suit.

---

The vast majority of space junk gathered in the Debris Belt around the Earth. However the recently battles in Lunar orbit had caused a new, if considerably, small belt to gather around the moon. It was within this belt that the five remaining Hyperion Sabres of the Obstinate Arrows were waiting. General Melchett had allowed Sofia to go off on her own to help the Herschel crater garrison but at first he had prevent the rest of the squad from assisting. However Louis Gautier had convinced the General to allow the squad to intervene if Sofia got into danger of being killed or captured. The Obstinate Arrows valued their secrecy very highly and did not want the Atlantic Federation to get its hands on the "Armure Lumiere" mono-phase lightwave shield emitter technology. The Atlantic Federation was having great success with their positron reflectors but hadn't succeeded in effectively scaling it down to mobile suit size.

"Okay ladies and gentlemen. It looks like our little Sofia has gotten herself into a little bother," said Loius in his thick French accent. "The rest of you can play with the Atlantic Fleet. I will rescue Sofia."

He received a quartet of confirmations before all five of them broke cover and raced down upon the inspecting Atlantic Fleet.

---

Captain Harold Pinter was rather annoyed that Herschel base hadn't folded. He was also rather angry at those incompetent fools in the 27th Unified Attack Battalion they had allowed themselves to walk into a trap and had been mauled for it. Even the much vaunted "Guns of The Patriots" were only making minor headway.

He was so engrossed in the mobile suit battle that he was taken quite by surprise when Drake class escort ship Arthur exploded in quite spectacular fashion. It was followed in quick succession by the Nelson class cruiser Wellsely. Within a matter of minutes another four Drakes were sent crashing to the lunar surface and two more Nelsons were burning from stem to stern.

Completely incapable of speaking Pinter was desperately running through his head possible excuses he could make up for this disaster. However he would never get a chance to test out any of them as a stream of beam sub-machinegun fire ripped through the Alexander's bridge.

---

Stephan allowed himself a little exclamation of joy as his beam struck the Hyperion-wannabe just above the left knee. The beam tore through the armoured plating and ripped the leg off. Despite the damage it was taking the Eurasian mobile suit was proving a tough nut to crack. He couldn't help but admire the way the pilot was able to twist and turn their suit to minimalize the damage they were taking.

However it was at that moment that two things happened. First a series of explosions raced through the Atlantic fleet high above them. This immediately caused Stephan some concern as he hadn't seen the Eurasian fleet launch. Second his computer informed him that a second Hyperion-wannabe was charge directly at him from above. It was firing both it's beam sub-machineguns with wanton abandon. Stephan positioned his shield to block these attacks only to unexpectedly leave himself open to the enemy he had been fighting before.

The damaged Eurasian mobile suit had ignited it's remaining beam sabre and was charging at the Wing Dagger's exposed torso. Stephan fired his thrusters at just the right moment to avoid the sabre blade but not without leaving a blackened scar where the tip had just made contact.

Far behind this little combat the surviving Atlantic ships were firing off flares summoning their mobile suits back to deal with who was attacking them. Stephan swore to himself and reluctantly broke off.

---

As the Atlantic fleet fled from Herschel crater the Eurasian forces regrouped and prepared for their own escape. Under the protection of the Obstinate Arrows the ten warships and attendant transport ships of the Herschel base garrison launched into orbit to join the Franz Josef which was waiting in high orbit.

_End of the Tale_


	22. Tale Twenty Two

**Tale Twenty Two: Commander Christopher Bishop - ZGMF-2000 GOUF Ignited - The Battle for Heavan's Base.**

The sight of the entire Orbital Drop squad being wiped out by LOGOS' Nibelung cannon was enough to make Commander Christopher Bishop to swear most violently. It sicken him to think that the enemy had been able to use such a dirty tactic. Attacking the drop squad while they were still deploying was just cheap. However it was exactly what he expected of those damned naturals.

"Captain why the hell haven't we been given a launch order?" Christopher yelled at Captain Silvio Andreotti; master of the _Vosgulov_ class attack submarine _Etna_ upon which Christopher was stationed.

"Simmer down Jaygee when the Chairman gives the attack order you'll be the first to know," replied Andreotti patiently.

"I thought I told you to never call me Jaygee!" screamed Christopher hysterically. His breathing quickly became erratic and his eyes widened to unimaginable proportions. "No-one, no-one, no-one, no-one, no-one can call me that word! No-one! They died because they call me that! All of them, they all died because they were weak!" He started stroking the rather impressive network of scares that criss-crossed his face with all the subtly of someone who wasn't entirely stable.

"Shut the fuck up Bishop!" bellowed Andreotti. "If you don't calm down I'll rescind your piloting privileges. They'll never let you back in a cockpit ever again. How do you like that eh? You'll never get your revenge if you can't pilot."

"Revenge, yes, I must get me revenge," Christopher said more to himself than anyone else. "I have to avenge all those who fell before. Everyone; Franklin, Barns, Stone, Bond, Bikham, Brandreth, Lowe, Cobbett..."

"Here is your chance Bishop, the order has been given. Destroy all those LOGOS dogs!" ordered Andreotti.

"Yesss," Christopher let the word out like a long drawn out hiss before declaring: "Christopher Bishop, GOUF, launching!"

Seconds later Bishop's silver, with dark blue highlights, GOUF was screaming up the linear catapult track and out into the sky. The five massive X-1 Destroy units were causing merry hell with Earth Alliance forces that had joined ZAFT in their anti-LOGOS mission. As far as Christopher was concerned they could wipe each other out. He knew for a fact that ZAFT didn't need those natural dogs for anything other than a meat shield. Ignoring the Destroys, which would be suicide to attack, he turned his attention to the Jet Windams escorting them. The three aces off the _Minerva_ were already weighing into the Windam squadrons but Christopher knew there were plenty to go around.

Taking his MMI-558 "Tempest" beam sword from behind the shield on his GOUF's left arm Christopher charged at a group of three Jet Windams. The OMNI machines tried to hit the GOUF with their beam rifles but the nimble silver mobile suit was too fast. With one swipe Christopher cut up through the lead Windam from the left to the right. As it disintegrated and exploded Christopher twisted his sword arm around and sliced off the Jet striker backpack of another Windam. The sudden loss of lift caused the Windam to drop like a stone to the sea below where it landed on a Euclid mobile armour. He punched the last remaining Windam in the head with the GOUFs free hand before hacking off its limbs at leisure and when plunging the Tempest beam sword through the Windam's cockpit.

"Call yourselves soldiers? This is pathetic!" yelled Christopher on an open communication channel. "You fought with more passion during the last war! Are you the best LOGOS have to offer?"

A wailing warning sound rang through the GOUFs cockpit indicating that far below the nearest X-1 Destroy fired off a barrage of missiles from its multi-launchers. Taking evasion action Christopher swung his two "Draupnir" 4-barrel beam guns into play and loosed a spray of beams that destroyed several of the missiles. Unfortunately he was only able to clear a small section of the barrage and a trio of DINNs were completely obliterated.

As the Destiny took it's "Arondight" anti-ship sword too the X-1 Destroy Christopher honed in on some more Jet Windams. The MA-M757 "Slayer Whip" heat rod was one of the things about the GOUF that Christopher really liked. It was quite different from any other weapon he had used on a mobile suit before. The possibility for fun with it were virtually endless. With a flick of the GOUF's wrist he sent the Slayer Whip out and entwined it around a Windam's M9409L beam rifle. The electrical charge within the whip caused the beam rifle to exploded and while the Windam attempted to recover Christopher sprayed it with beam shots from one of his Draupnir beam guns. The once proud OMNI Enforcer machine was torn to pieces as the beams ripped through its armour plating.

Much to Christopher's annoyance he was interrupted by another attack from nearer ground level. However instead of missiles this time it was the multi-colour blast of a hyper impulse cannon. The blast got a bit too close for comfort and while he was able to deflect it with his shield the spikes were burnt off. On the shoreline were a gaggle of Daggers sporting the Launcher Striker Pack made famous by the Strike mobile suit during the last war.

"Oh you guys want to play as well eh?" Christopher laughed to himself. "You think you can beat me? Those popguns of your couldn't kill me before and they are not going to kill me now!"

Wanting to repay the favour Christopher ignored the remaining Jet Windams and zoomed in towards the Launcher Daggers. Three of them fired again but he was more than ready for them. It was comparatively easy for him to avoid their slow moving blasts. As he swooped past the Daggers he used his Tempest beam sword to hack off the head of one of them. He landed on the ground close enough to them so that their cumbersome hyper impulse launchers would be a hindrance to them.

He flicked out the Slayer Whip again and entangled it on one of the Dagger's right arms. Christopher didn't active a electrical charge and instead yanked to hard on the whip that it tore the Dagger's arm right off. In the moment of shock that followed he impaled the Dagger on his beam sword. As he shoved the dead Dagger away he brought the beam sword around a hacked a chunk out of the headless Dagger, which was still staggering around, to put it out of it's misery.

The remaining two Daggers were caught by a hail of missiles and beams fired off by the ASSH amphibious mobile suits that had finally reached the shore. At the same time, in the hills above the main base, the combined efforts of the Impulse and Legend felled another of the X-1 Destroys. The battle was more or less over. All the enemy defence lines were breached and their soldiers were fleeing for their lives. As far as Christopher was concerned defeated enemies didn't have the right to run away. They should just die like they were supposed to. And with that in mind he levelled his Draupnir beam guns at the fleeing soldiers and fired.

_End of the Tale _


	23. Tale Twenty Three

**Tale Twenty Three: Ichiro Suzuhara – YFX-200 CGUE DEEP Arms Ichiro-type - The Battle of Orb**

A snapshot from Ichrio Suzuhara's MA-M21G beam rifle tore through the right flight wing of a BABI mobile suit. The sudden loss of flight capabilities caused the aerial mobile suit to crash land. As the bloated purple mobile suit attempted to stand Ichiro's CGUE darted in and sliced off its head with his NOL-Y941 heavy laser sword.

"Astray Squad you can't stay here! You need to redeploy to the third defence line! Hurry!" Ichiro barked over a communication channel to the nearby Orb mobile suits. "You are too exposed, you'll be overwhelmed."

"W-who the hell are you?" stammered the quite obviously petrified Astray squad leader. "We haven't received any orders about retreating."

A beam fell just short of the two Astrays throwing up a shower of dirt. While swearing under his breath Ichiro repositioned his CGUE in front of the Astrays. He swung his beam rifle up towards the sky and fired off a quartet of shots. Two of the beams burned through the torso of a DINN causing it to exploded while another blew off a leg of another BABI. The Astrays added their own fire to finish off the BABI.

"I'm an old friend of Instructor Goodman at the defence academy," replied Ichiro. "You'll never be able to defend Orb with this sort of lacklustre defence plan. Now fall back and reorganise, my squad will cover you."

"Yes sir!" replied the Astray squad leader.

"Max, Dax, Ethelred! Get your arses over here right now!" ordered Ichiro on the Diving Kestrel's private communication channel.

It did not take long for the two GINN OCHERs and the Strike Dagger to reach the little outcrop of rock where the Astrays were located. However at the same time that they came out of cover an object fell from the sky directly above them. Using it's thrusters to break the fall and to throw up a cloud of dust the object revealed itself to be a silver, with dark blue highlights, GOUF Ignited. Brandishing its MMI-558 "Tempest" beam sword the GOUF sliced both the Astrays in half with one swipe.

The GOUF fired it's thrusters to perform a little bunny hop away from the exploding Astrays. At the same time it lashed out with its MA-M757 "Slayer Whip". The electrically charged heat rod lashed across the torso of Max's GINN OCHER. The electrical charge disabled the old desert combat mobile suit's electronics long enough to allow the Tempest beam sword to slice off its right arm in an upwards cut and then hack down diagonally through its torso.

Almost immediately Dax readied his MA-M3 heavy sword and charged in to avenge his fallen brother; he was followed by Ethelred's Strike Dagger with sabre in hand. The two vintage mobile suits were scarcely a threat to the top of the line GOUF. Dax's OCHER first had its heavy sword chopped in half before being sliced in half at its waist. The Strike Dagger faired no better as it was ripped to shreds by beams from the GOUF's Draupnir beam guns.

Ichiro was shocked by the wanton ferocity of the GOUF's attacks. War by its very nature was a brutal affair but as far as Ichiro was concerned there was no need deliberately make it worse. Ichiro brought up his beam rifle ready to fire however the GOUF flicked out it's Slayer Whip, entwining it around the rifle, before he could press the trigger. The electrical charge raced along the heat rod causing the rifles internal component to overload and exploded. Fortunately for Ichiro, however, he was able to throw it away in time.

"I only know one man who has ever used that colour scheme on a mobile suit. He was coward and butcher of his own men. Su-zu-ha-ra!" taunted the GOUF pilot on an open communication channel. The GOUF took some steady and confident steps towards Ichiro's CGUE. "I thought you were dead Su-zu-ha-ra, I didn't think I would ever get a chance to do this!" The GOUF took a mighty slash with its Tempest beam sword towards the CGUE's torso but luckily Ichiro was able to block with his own laser sword.

"I don't know what the hell you are talking about!" retorted Ichiro. He broke the locked swords and with great force swung his laser sword around in a rather sloppy stroke that the GOUF could easily avoid.

"Don't tell me the great Su-zu-ha-ra can't even remember the voice of one of his subordinates!" roared the GOUF pilot. "Did we mean so little to you? Did you even bother to learn our names? Did you even care?"

"S-subordinate? What the?" Ichiro stammered as he attempted to dodge another swipe by the GOUF's beam sword. Unfortunately he wasn't able to completely avoid it and a chunk of armour was nicked out of his left shoulder. "Wait...Bishop? My god is that you?"

"I'm honoured that you would remember me. Maybe our sacrifices had some impact on you after all," sneered Christopher Bishop.

"What do you mean? I'm not coward and I never butchered my own men," snapped Ichiro. "I fought long and hard during the last war. The losses suffered by my command haunt me to this day but there was nothing I could do. We had to fight impossible battles after impossible battles. You know! You were there! I did everything I could to keep everyone alive."

"So you say! But what about Jachin Due! You fled like a coward and abandoned your command," roared Bishop as he flicked out his Slayer Whip again.

Ichiro slipped his laser sword in at the correct angle to intercept the heat rod and slice it in half before it could contact his CGUE. "Don't mess with me! You can't get me with that cheap trick twice!" yelled Ichiro. "I never fled at Jachin Due. I tried to stop the Earth Alliance's nuclear attack force but was stopped by those high performance mobile suits. It's not my fault you were too much of a glory hog to obey more orders and stick close. If you men died it's just as much your fault! You were my second in command and you rushed off into battle constantly!" At the flick of a switch the small missile launcher mounted on the CGUE's right shoulder spewed forth a quartet of missiles.

At such close range the GOUF could barely defend itself in time. However Bishop was able to block with his arm mounted shield though it did result in the shield and the Draupnir beam gun beneath it being effectively destroyed. "Don't blame me for your inadequacies! You say all those deaths haunt you but you've never been to the cemetery have you? Row after row of grey head stones. Each one a dead comrade that will never come back. So many friends!" a manic tinge was creeping into Bishop's voice. Ichiro assumed that he was less than stable. "There is a whole avenue devoted to your team Su-zu-ha-ra. So many, oh so many. And you've never visited them! Have you! Do you have any idea how many of us died for you?"

"I-I don't know," Ichiro admitted. Of all of Bishop's rantings that last comment really did have an impact on Ichiro. He didn't know. During the last war his squadron had suffered heavily casualties on a regular basis. Those seventeen months of conflict had resulted in a lot of subordinates dying.

Taking advantage of Ichiro's brief pause Bishop lashed out with his beam sword. The blade sliced through Ichiro's unprepared laser sword on the blunt side. Continuing the attack Bishop hacked through the CGUE DEEP Arm's left arm and then down into its left leg. Ichiro swore violently as his mobile suit crashed into the ground.

"I've been waiting for this for so long Su-zu-ha-ra," the GOUF Ignited stood over the damaged CGUE variant with its remaining Draupnir beam gun locked on target. "Now I can finally get our revenge."

"It's not time for me to die yet!" roared Ichiro. Using the only weapon he had left he triggered the railgun mounted on the CGUE's left shoulder. The electromagnetically fired slug tore through the GOUF's overstretched arm shredding the Draupnir beam gun before it could fire. Fortunately for Ichiro the slug then went on to strike the GOUF's head. By then the slug had lost a great deal of momentum and thus was unable to destroy the head. However it did enough damage to knock out the GOUF's visual sensors. "I've got far too much still to do!"

Bishop let out a primordial scream of rage when he discovered that the GOUF's sensors were too badly damaged to be repair in the field. "Damn it Su-zu-ha-ra! You got lucky here today! But mark my words I will kill you!"

Before Ichiro could reply the GOUF took off using it's impressive flight capabilities. Ichiro slumped in his seat. He was exhausted both physically and mentally. He found it hard to believe that someone he had once considered a friend could carry such fierce a hatred. He didn't think he had been a bad commander but when he came to think about it towards the end of the war he hadn't made an effort to get to know his subordinates. Now today even more of his friends had been killed. As the battle raged around his damaged CGUE DEEP Arms a tear ran down Ichiro's cheek.

_End of the Tale_


	24. Tale Twenty Four

Tale: 24 - Ensign Arthur Raynor - MRC-F20 SUMO - Relics from the Past

Ensign Arthur Raynor was somewhat less than pleased with his current assignment. He considered it a substantial waste of his abilities. He was a member of the elite Royal Guard and one of only a handful left on the Moon after Queen Diana went to the Earth. It was his purpose to protect the White Palace not to go off on some stupid survey mission. However the order had come from directly from Harry Ord and Arthur was not about to start disobeying the Queen's personal bodyguard.

An asteroid known as M-O-V.I had a very erratic orbit around the Earth Sphere and for the first time in thousands of years it had gotten close enough to the Moon for an expedition to be sent to it. The Moonrace's various scientists and astronomers had shown a great interest in M-O-V.I for reasons that were quite beyond Arthur. All he knew was that he'd been assigned to the _Aspite_ cruiser dispatched by General Ghingnham to investigate the asteroid. Naturally Arthur had encountered hostility from Ghingnham's pilots on the cruiser. They were famously arrogant and abrasive and this group were certainly living up to their reputation.

"Raynor there will be no need for you to launch," barked Edmund Curran, the leader of the _Aspite's_ Mahiroo squadron. "It is just a simple fly by. We don't need the Royal Guard butting their heads in where they aint wanted."

"I will be the judge of that Curran," replied Arthur sharply. Queen Diana's Royal Guard had a great deal of autonomy within the Moonrace military structure. Arthur easily had the authority to do what he pleased on this mission.

Curran didn't reply. Instead his Mahiroo stormed out of the hanger followed by eight more of the dome headed machines. Arthur gave them a few minutes head started before following them. It wouldn't be a wise idea to antagonise Curran too much. However Arthur didn't want the Ghingnham pilot to think he was a push over.

The asteroid was a big black beast that filled Arthur's monitors. It was a lot larger than he expected at roughly one hundred miles in length. Long range visual scans from the _Aspite_ had discovered several fissures that could lead into the interior of the asteroid. The SUMO's own sensors showed that the Mahiroos were heading towards the largest of these fissures. Arthur triggered his thrusters to help him catch up with the Mahiroos. He did not want to let them out of his sight.

Suddenly a wall of interference sprang up around the asteroid. The SUMOs sensors no longer detected the asteroid let alone the Mahiroos near it. Visually Arthur could just about make out the silver mobile suits. He swore to himself quite violently. Clearly this was not a natural phenomenon; something on the asteroid was generating an interference field. That could only mean that someone had got to the asteroid first since it was extremely unlikely that there was anyone resident.

Before long Arthur's SUMO passed through the interference field. Instantly communication was cut off with the _Aspite_ and he was down to just visual sensor information. He noted that the Mahiroos were just milling around at the opening to the fissure. Obviously Curran was hesitant to carry on without instant support from the cruiser.

"What's the matter Curran? Too chicken to go in and take a look?" sneered Arthur. The message barely got through. The interference was affecting local radio communication as well. Arthur increased his thrusters to two thirds max output and sailed passed the silver mobile suits into the fissure. Incensed by the slur Curran led his team into the fissure as well.

After the wide open spaces of space the fissure was surprisingly claustrophobic for Arthur. After descending for a couple of hundred meters the fissure began narrowing. It got quite snug in places but the SUMO was able to comfortably fit through. Eventually the rock walls gave way to metal plating. More and more of it appeared before, after a few minutes, Arthur reached the 'bottom' of the fissure. The SUMO gently touched down on the metal floor and Arthur was forced to activate a light because of the darkness. A quick survey of the area revealed several mobile suit sized doors radiating off from the main room.

"Raynor, what is meaning of this?" barked Curran as his Mahiroo descended into the room quickly followed by the rest of his team. "There isn't supposed to be anything like this here."

"I don't know Edmund," replied Arthur. He was already forming his own ideas about that he was seeing. "I've got a feeling that we've just discovered something very old." Next to one of the mobile suit doors he found what looked like an control panel. With a careful hand movement the SUMO pressed the controls. After a few seconds of rumbling the door slowly opened. "I think we should have a look around. I'll take this door."

Before he received an answer he set the SUMO to walk into the dark abyss. There was even less light behind the door than there was in the main chamber. The light on the SUMO scarcely seemed sufficient. However the beam of light was already illuminating objects. They were, on the whole, mobile suit shaped. Some had a green paint scheme others were blue and yet more were purple. The purple ones had an additional backpack that appeared to have directional thrusters on them. A lot of them were also sporting damage consistent with heavy fighting. The beam of light fell on a pile of broken mobile suit parts in the corner of the massive room. Next to it was an extensive pile of weapons ranging from machineguns to bazookas to strange looking long barrelled rifles.

A little further into the room Arthur found a data bank of computers. Using the SUMOs systems he hacked into the ancient computers. Information soon filled his monitors. Some of it had been corrupted and was illegible but one bit come through in the clear. "After Colony 196: The launching of resource satellite MO VI into the Sun sees an end to the horrific age of mobile suits. May Humanity For Ever Live In Peace." Arthur read aloud. He couldn't help but think how wrong they were. Just by looking at the damaged mobile suits Arthur could tell that these people had been involved in some heavy fighting. It looked as though they had tried to solve their problems by simply throwing away their mobile suits. However that had backfired quite spectacularly. Some how this MO VI had missed the Sun and had finally returned to the Earth Sphere. He made sure to download as much information as possible since any scrap could be useful in the future.

"Sirs. I've found something odd," reported Kim Jong. Radio communication seemed unaffected by the earlier interference inside the asteroid.

"What is it, Kim?" asked Curran. "Mobile suits? I've found plenty of them."

"Sort of sir," replied Kim uncertainly. "They don't appear to have any cockpits...hey wait one of them moved...what the..."

The communication was cut off by a rather loud explosion that rippled through the asteroids interior. Immediately Arthur turned his SUMO around and had it running back to the main chamber. As his silver mobile suit pounded through the massive doors he'd opened earlier he almost ran straight into two black mobile suits. They were of a rather bulky and crude construction with huge round shoulders; mounted on their right arms appeared to be some sort of cannon. As the SUMO approached both the black mobile suits turned around and point their cannons. On the right shoulder a hatch opened and something began charging up. Instinctively Arthur activated the IF generator mounted on his left arm. The I-Field barrier formed just moments before the two cannons fired. The yellow beams were a lot more powerful than Arthur expected and he thought that perhaps his field wouldn't be able to withstand them.

Fortunately the field stood strong. Rather than risk a reactor detonation at such close range Arthur activated his heat fan rather than his beam gun. Using his superior manoeuvrability he plunged his heat fan deep into one of the black mobile suits. The armour plating melted under extreme heat and with a small explosion the mobile suit crumpled into a heap. Just as swiftly he decapitated the other mobile suit which promptly stopped moving.

Standing over the destroyed mobile suits Arthur could see that they did not have cockpits just as Kim had said. He had heard of remote controlled mobile suits before but none that were being used at the moment. That led him to conclude that this whole asteroid was a relic from the Dark History, considering the orbit of the asteroid, maybe even before. This made things very difficult. It was hard to predict such old technology. Even more so if someone was controlling these machines by remote though Arthur had a hard time believing anyone else was actually on the asteroid.

"Curran, I think it's time we left," said Arthur. He could see into the chamber where the black mobile suits had come from. More and more of them were activating and marching towards to entrance.

"I do not run from my enemies," fumed Curran as his Mahiroo returned to the central chamber. "That might be what they do in the Royal Guard but not in our unit."

"I do not doubt your bravery," snapped Arthur. "But this place is too cramped for your Mahiroos. These things aren't very manoeuvrable but they are pretty powerful. If we get them out into open space you'll take them apart."

"Agreed," grumbled Curran. "Come on men draw them out of the asteroid and we'll show them what we are made of!"

The Mahiroos began retreating back up the fissure as quickly as they could. Arthur had to admit that Ghingnham's soldiers were very brave but they weren't stupid either. There was a distinct tactical disadvantage in fighting inside the asteroid. Six of the black mobile suits clunked into the main chamber just as Arthur's SUMO took off up the fissure. They fired as soon as they detected the silver mobile suit but fortunately Arthur was clear long before the beams reached where his suit had been. Naturally they gave chase but despite their best efforts they were unable to hit the SUMO in the fissure.

After several minutes of frantic flying the SUMO emerged into space. It was an exhilarating experience of Arthur. The sense of freedom was palpable and very sweet indeed. However he knew full well that he couldn't relax yet. Moments later the six black mobile suits emerged from the fissure as well. Immediately Curran's Mahiroos set upon them. Arthur was suitable impressed by the display of individual flying skill. The first black mobile suit was downed by a pin point shot that ripped through the shoulder mounted generator which caused the whole machine to explode. The next was felled by a rather martial kick to the head that destroyed the control mechanism.

Arthur himself quickly joined the proceedings with his beam gun blazing away. Three shots hit one of the black mobile suits in the chest causing it to explode violently. The cannons mounted on them gave them impressive firepower but in the openness of space the Moonrace mobile suits had the advantage in movement. As if to prove the point the remaining black suits were quickly dispatched with little fuss.

"What now Royal Guard?" asked Curran harshly. "There were hundreds of those things down there. You can't expect us to fight them piecemeal like this. It'll get boring quickly."

"I'm sure they'll give us plenty to worry about," said Arthur. He was right. Before his words had even stopped more and more of the black mobile suits were emerging from the fissure. First six, then twelve, the twenty-two, then forty-eight. A seemingly endless torrent spewed forth. Increasingly there were brown mobile suits as well; they were of similar design to the black ones but they had some sort of booster on their backs and lacked the built in beam cannon. "This enough of a challenge for you Curran?"

Curran snorted before speaking. "It's a start. Maybe the brown ones will be more of a challenge." Before a shot could be fired strange red disks began popping off the shoulders of the enemy mobile suits. A blue energy field arced between the disks linking them all together. Curran took aim with his shield mounted beam gun and fired. The powerful yellow beam struck the energy field a few meters in front of the enemy mobile suits and fizzled out. "Now it's a challenge." The Moonrace mobile suits immediately scattered as the asteroid mobile suits let rip with a massive barrage.

"I-Field up. Set to auto reaction. Auto on!" Arthur barked. Even on the auto reaction setting his I-Field generator could only provide so much protection. He squeezed off a couple of shots that were easily deflected by the energy field. As far as he could tell it was quite different from the I-Field generated by his own SUMO. One of the brown mobile suits suddenly appeared from behind and lunged at Arthur's suit with a beam sabre in hand. Instinctively Arthur went for his heat fan; the super heated blade went straight through the energy field and pierced the mobile suit's reactor. He jetted away before the reactor exploded.

Off to his left Arthur noticed a Mahiroo firing on one of the black mobile suits. The beam was naturally repulsed but Arthur spotted that the energy field had to be entirely directed in one location. Leaving it vulnerable to a rear attack. Dancing his SUMO to avoid incoming fire Arthur waited for the Mahiroo to fire again. When it did Arthur seized the moment to deliver a killing blow.

"Everyone coordinate your attacks. The energy field can't cover every direction at once," he ordered. Promptly his heat fan sliced a black mobile suit in half as it tried to take aim at one of the Mahiroos.

"Sir, you can destroy the disks if you sh..." the communication was cut off as a beam tore through the armour plating protecting the Mahrioo's cockpit. Arthur swore violently and chased after the machine that had killed his comrade. He fired two shots with his beam gun. The first was deflected by the energy field but the second struck one of the disks which promptly exploded. At that moment the field around the enemy mobile suit failed letting Arthur riddle its torso with more beams.

Arthur knew things weren't going well. There were just far too many of the enemy machines. The survey mission had only been given a handful of mobile suits and losses were mounting. If the enemy machines were remotely operated there had to be a central control point somewhere in the asteroid. He pulled up the information he'd obtained from the asteroid's computer banks and tried to find something relevant. It was, however, difficult to concentrate on the information while constantly having to avoid enemy fire. Then he spotted a schematic of the asteroid; near the centre was a room marked Mobile Doll Control Centre. That seemed as good a target as any.

"Curran! I think I know how to stop these things," yelled Arthur as he gunned down another enemy mobile suit. "Help me clear a path back to the fissure. I need to get inside."

"I hope you know what you are doing," remarked Curran as he and his remaining Mahiroos joined up with Arthur. The five machines formed a rough vee formation and charged towards the fissure at full thrust. The shield mounted beam guns of the Mahiroos flared repeatedly. Most of the shots were deflected by the energy fields surrounding the enemy mobile suits however a couple were able to slip through and cause significant damage.

As they neared the mouth of the fissure the Mahiroos split off allowing Arthur's SUMO to descend. The SUMO hurtled down at a far greater pace than when it had first ventured into the darkness. This time Arthur had his heat fan ready and it came in handy about half way down. A pair of the brown mobile suits were heading up the fissure and so when the three machines crossed paths Arthur lashed out. His heat fan succeeded in cut one of the brown mobile suits clean in half while the other was mortally wounded.

The central chamber, at the bottom of the fissure, was surprisingly empty apart from the destroyed mobile suits from earlier. This made it a lot easier to Arthur to navigate his way to the Mobile Doll Control Centre. He had to travel through a rabbit warren of corridors, tunnels and passageways some of which were scarcely big enough for his SUMO to fit down.

Eventually he reached his destination and found it guarded by a quartet of the black mobile suits. Immediately Arthur started firing with his beam gun. He was able to knock out the energy field for one of them and then blast it's head off but by then the other three had opened fire. His I-Field generator kicked in and blocked the shots but it was under a great deal of strain to repulse the three powerful beam at point blank range. As the black mobile suits stopped firing to recharge Arthur took the opportunity to leap forward. With his heat fan out stretched he plunged the super heated blade down into one of the enemy mobile suits. Unfortunately the black mobile suit next to it recharged its cannon faster than Arthur anticipated.

The blast vaporised the SUMOs left arm taking the heat fan and the I-Field generator with it. The sudden loss of the limb caused the SUMO to loose its balance and fall to the ground with a metallic clunk. Arthur grumbled at his own stupidity but was rewarded with a golden opportunity. From the ground he could see through the enemies defences to his target. While the two remaining black mobile suits took aim he swung his beam gun around and let rip at the Mobile Doll Control Centre facility. After the beams penetrated the flimsy outer metal walls they found no resistance and quite happily trashed the inner mechanisms.

The effect was almost instantaneous; the black mobile suits stopped dead in their tracks. Arthur suspected that the same was happening outside the asteroid. He would have to get in touch with Curran soon but he had one last job to do. After getting the SUMO back up on its feet he set it on course to another part of the asteroid. He'd noted on the schematics that there was a propulsion room as well. He had the feeling that someone in the upper echelons back on the Moon had known exactly what was in M-O-V.I. Someone on the Moon wanted to control this 'mobile doll' technology. That must have been why Harry Ord had arranged for his transfer to the mission. It didn't take long to get to the propulsion room and Arthur immediately set about programming the ancient nuclear pulse engines to carry the asteroid into the sun where it belonged. Once that was done he travelled back to the central chamber where he lingered only momentarily to look upon the distant past. Thousands of years ago these people tried to find peace the only way they knew how. Arthur hoped that in the present day they would be able to find a more effective way of securing peace.

_End of the Tale_


End file.
